Outcasts
by thubar2000
Summary: Panic begins to infect the crew as the Second Angel tracks Shinji and Rei. It's danger on the high seas for the Eva crew with a short update to Outcasts.
1. At School

The world is based on Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" with characters and giant humanoid fighting machines are based on Evangelion. A daemon is the physical manifestation of a person's soul out of the body.

**Outcasts**

Chapter 1. At School**  
**

Hikari Horaki dozed in the fading sunlight. Autumn was in full swing and the leaves had turned to full and deep yellows and reds. The sun splashed through the dusty window in tantalizing hand wide stripes of butter colored light across her worn wooden table. Her fingers itched to scratch behind the ears of her daemon, Yoshi-hiko. Yoshi-hiko laid on his side in the form of a gray cat. He lazily soaked up warmth from the table. Hikari wished that he had not made himself so comfortable, it was dragging her even closer to sleep. She wanted to nuzzle and cuddle him, but that would earned her a sharp reprimand from the lecturer and calls of "baby" from some of her classmates. Yoshi-hiko looked at her with one bright yellow eye, then lay back down.

She stole another glance outside. The days were getting noticeably shorter and the idea of listening to the nun's monotone nearly brought tears to her eyes. In front of the class, the middle aged European nun droned on.

Really, Hikari thought to herself. Her nose isn't that big.

Flicking her eyes to her right, she saw that Asuka was not even trying to stay awake. Her head bowed down as she snored slightly. Her falcon daemon, Siegsmyrth, was also asleep perched on her chair over her right shoulder. While the nun was plain enough to befit her serge and shapeless habit, Asuka was stood out like a beacon in the class of black haired girls. Her red hair and blue eyes alone made her stand out. Her figure showed the curves of the emerging beauty even through the dowdy uniforms. Their jackets covered their arms to their wrists and the skirts exposed only a hint of stocking. The entire outfit was colored in shades of drab. Jewelry was strictly forbidden, but her friend made her ribbon the equal of any tiara.

Hikari took a deep breathe and turned forward once again. Hikari reminded herself that her parents were paying for her schooling and that as a good daughter, she should be able to suffer through a little boredom. She tuned into the stream of droning Japanese. It was the same lecture that the nun gave everyday and Hikari was sure that Sister Amelia would give it everyday until the end of the term.

"And so Eve, being weak and flawed took the fruit, listening to the serpent, but truly the serpent was already in her heart. And when she tasted the forbidden fruit she knew shame and her daemon assumed a single form and stayed in that form, unable to change again. I remind you all that you are all coming of that same age when your daemons shall assume it's one true form and that temptation will come your way. I shall pray for your souls. Some shall need all the help that they can receive.

"Temptation takes many forms, not just that of the serpent. You must remember that you are born with the curse of Eve and that the serpent has been born in your bosom. Only by cleansing yourselves and turning away from the wicked world around you can you escape her fate."

What did the fruit taste like? Hikari found herself thinking. I have seen it drawn as an apple. I like apples. So crisp and firm. They are in season. I hope that this Sunday is clear outside. Then we could go to the market.

A shrill metal bell rang, interrupting the lecture.

"Class is dismissed," the sister intoned.

They stood and bowed and formed a single file to leave the class.

Asuka snorted awake and her daemon nearly fell from his perch as the waking girl threw her arms up and behind her.

"Soooooooooooo boring," Asuka said as they walked away. Without looking, they entered the washroom. "Gaa, cold water."

"At least they have softer soap now," Hikari replied as she dried off her hands. "Some girls complained that the old stuff chapped their skin."

"Their should be more complaints about the something important, like the food or that nun. She needs to find another subject. If that hag had eaten from that fruit then maybe she wouldn't be so deadly boring. Gott im Himmel."

"Asuka, you should be more careful."

"Bah, what are they going to do, hit me again?" Asuka said with a shrug. "If He's so high and mighty, a little swearing shouldn't hurt him. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words should never hurt Him."

Hikari managed a smile, but remained silent. Asuka was the equal to any physical punishment, but it all seemed so unnecessary. As they walked side by side, Yoshi-hiko took the form of a butterfly, lit on Hikari's collar and then became a squirrel. Her daemon nuzzled her behind her ear.

"So has Siegsmyrth chosen a form yet?"

"Almost," Asuka announced while throwing back her luxuriant hair. The red falcon looked about imperiously as he perched on the leather gauntlet Asuka wore out of class. Several of the girls looked at her as they filed down the hall. One by one, they fell silent as they entered the dining hall. The hall held over a hundred students. Perhaps it was a trick of acoustics or the continued admonishments from the sisters, but the room made voices sound small and unwelcome.

The students lined up by the plain tables, one student behind each plain wooden chair. Five minutes later, the sisters and head nun filed in as they did everyday. The sisters stood next to their equally plain seats. The smell of food drifted to them. Hikari thought that the delay in front of waiting meal was unnecessary, but did not think that the few minutes were worth complaining about. Sister Amelia looked about with a dull uninterested gaze.

"You may take your seats," she said in her nearly flawless, but dry and uninflected Japanese.

Each and every chair slid back with small screeches and whines across the bare board floor and then skid back toward the tables. Her stomach grumbled in complaint. She clasped her hands in front of herself and bowed her head. Yoshi-hiko leapt down from her shoulder to the table, then the uncomfortable floor. A flap told her that Siegsmyrth took his accustomed place behind Asuka. In drawn out syllables and her usual automaton voice, the head nun mercilessly said grace.

After grace the girls ladled out vegetable soup out of a tureen and passed the plates of bread, cheese, tough meat, and vegetables. The food was edible and there was enough to go around, but there was no rice. After fourteen years of eating rice, Hikari did not feel full until she had eaten at least a few mouthfuls of rice. All the girls beside Asuka had mentioned it. The first market day, the girls had descended on the market place looking for rice balls. Round, steaming hot. She would have devoured them plain. She shook her head slightly to clear her mind. There was no rice and wishing would only ruin her meal.

Asuka had complained about how she wanted to try dog or raw fish or whatever the Japanese ate.

"Deutschland to Hikari," Asuka said waving her hand in front of Hikari. "What lured your mind out to sea?"

"Rice."

"I swear, hearing you gals talk. You're as bad as rummies without your rum. Though I must say, the food is so bland that the cook must be English or something. My queendom for a proper wurst."

"By the way, you're holding that wrong."

Asuka lifted her eyebrows and showed that her knife was in her left and her knife was in her right. Hikari switched, sawing the meat was harder with her left hand.

"The silence bothers me," Hikari said in a low voice.

"Silence." Asuka said listening to the low key buzz. "Yeah, everybody is whispering."

"It's not that."

"What is it, then?"

"When my family eats, you can hear it. I didn't notice it until I came here. I could hear my father drinking his soup. My mother sipping her tea. My younger sister shoveling down he rice. The crunch of vegetables. The sounds of a good meal.

"This is eerie almost as if we were..."

"On death row," Asuka supplied.

Hikari mulled it over, the comparison was harsh, but the words conveyed oppression. She nodded, that the way she felt sipping her soup so delicately with the tiny spoon.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to of it, listen to me, I'm an old hand at these schools," Asuka said with pride. "Remember that I've been kicked out of the best in Europe. I've even kicked out of one in America."

Hikari had heard it before. The brash attitude still made her smile. The other girls gave out a muted 'eh' of astonishment.

"Really?" a classmate asked.

"Really," Asuka said with an emphatic nod.

"Hey, have you heard?" Yamatoshi asked interrupting them. She was a thick bodied girl sitting two seats down from Hikari.

"What?" Asuka asked.

"About the two kids. One boy, one girl, Kitasawa swears that she saw them at the market from the corner of her eye. They didn't HAVE DAEMONS."

"Ewwww."

"No waaaay."

"Ridiculous."

"So gross."

"Are they even people?"

"I'd like to see that. Barnum's didn't even have one of those," Asuka added.

Hikari kept silent in the muffled outburst. Under the table, the daemons cried and hissed their outrage at the concept. The other tables looked their way, so they lowered their voices back down and shushed their daemons.

"I've heard about this," Asuka said chin in hand. She leaned forward, removing her hand as she warmed to her subject. "There are Africans who live on an island in a sea off the south east of tip of the American Confederacy. They can make zombies. Men without daemons, who walk around like the living DEAD."

She said the last words with relish.

"If they're Africans, why do they live in America?"

"They were slaves, are you stupid?"

Later that evening, Hikari climbed onto the low bunk. Yoshi-hito became a fuzzy and warm tanuki and sat solidly and comfortably on her stomach..

Asuka sat on the edge of Hikari's bed, brushing her long hair. "Hey Hikari."

"What?"

"What do you think about that story at lunch? Do you think that Yamatoshi was just trying to put us off of our lunches?"

"No."

"So what do you think?"

"I'll tell you another time."

"Hmmm, okay. I'll hold you to your promise. G'night," Asuka said, before climbing up.

"Sure. G'night."

In the still darkness, Hikari closed her eyes and remembered a cold winter night from several years before. It was a rare night of magical snow drifting down. Each bulky flake caught the light from massive moon that had just cleared a horizon of trees and hills. In the steady snowfall, she remembered clearly seeing two small forms wrapped in rags. Two pairs of eyes peered out from the layers of cloth. They looked right at her. One pair of eyes was deep blue, darker than Asuka's eyes and the other pair was red. Both were human. Hikari and Yoshi-hito looked at them with dark brown and shining cat's eyes. They looked for the eyes of the accompanying daemons, but saw none.


	2. Sunday Outing

Outcasts  
  


Notes

1. I aim to write at least one four page update a week.

2. I usually jinx myself talking about my ideas for stories and not writing them. So I hope that D14852001 and The Joiner will forgive me if I try to avoid jinxing myself this time. Thanks for your interest.  
  


2. Sunday Outing  
  


A great gaggle of girls walked to the market under a lightly gray sky that promised rain later on in the day. Released from the stuffy confines of the Holy Names Academy of Immaculate Conception, their voices spread and expanded in the streets. Hikari and Asuka stretched out their arms and twisted their torsos. Hikari managed to crack her back. Asuka outdid her friend by popping her spine one vertebrae at a time from tail bone to skull. Asuka let Siegsmyrth circle overhead, several hundred feet high.

"Wow, Siegsmyrth can go that far away from you?" Hikari asked.

"Yup and we practice going farther out. There are witches far to the north of Germany whose daemons can move about freely."

"That would be so strange," Hikari said. Yoshi-hiko had burrowed into her collar and curled around her neck. She shivered at the thought of seeing someone without their daemon. The thought did not seem possible by daylight. "I think that Ibuki-sensei is the nicest of all of the sisters."

"Yeah. At least she walks a decent pace," Asuka replied throwing a glance behind her at the other groups lagging far behind. "Let's speed up, I've seen backs for long enough."

They walked faster and skirted the other girls until they caught up with Sister Ibuki. The nun was a sharp contrast to Sister Amelia. Ibuki was in her early twenties and had a youthful face to match. The young woman looked about with lively interest rather than the reptilian gazes that Amelia and her iguana daemon affected. A slight smiled played on her lips; she shared the girls' relief at being outdoors. Ibuki's dove daemon flicked her head in unison with her human's head.

Their time outdoors usually consisted of standing in one place and hearing repetitions of "stretch, one, two". There was so much to be seen and heard after spending the days in class and evenings on books. The boulevard buzzed with life. Chattering and laughing families headed to the shops and open air market. The previous night's rain left the air clean and full of the scent of damp leaves. All of the reds and yellows of the leaves, the greens of grass, wood of the buildings, brown of the road, and the human colors seemed deep and rich by the cloud muted sunlight. A break in the clouds sent an expanding shaft of brilliance down on the group. They shied away from the light for a moment before luxuriating in its warmth. There was a world of difference between standing in the scenery rather than seeing it through twelve by twelve inch glass panes.

As they approached the center of town, they heard the call of the yam sellers. The odors of tanned leather, wood fire smoke, human sweat, horse, the wet earth beneath them, hot yams, the tang of seafood, cooked rice, and things less distinct clamored for their attention. Several other girls stopped for yams. Others visited other stalls and brought back sweeten rice cake or the tentacles of baked dried squids sticking out of their mouths. Asuka surveyed the choices, while Hikari decided to save her appetite and money for lunch and Ibuki waited patiently. In a moment, Asuka ducked into the crowd and came out with three yams in her leather gauntlet. With her off right hand, she pulled out her knife and sliced through the charred skins. She offered one to Hikari, then to Ibuki. Hikari thanked her with a smile.

"I shouldn't," Ibuki said.

"Relax, I don't think that a yam constitutes a bribe," Asuka said airily.

"It's not that."

"And I know how the amount you make, zilch. Anyway, since when does the Church turn down contributions?"

"Thank you, Asuka," Ibuki said seriously and took the small gift.

Hikari enjoyed autumn, there was sense of calm and order. There was the bustle of housekeeping. She liked helping her father keep track of the tasks that needed to be done. The fall did not have the desolate wait of winter. She wondered how her father was getting along without her. He was a grown man, but was surrounded by capable women servants, she decided. After all, those were the women who had taught her.

She bit into the hot soft flesh and savored the sweet and earthy flavor. It remembered her of seasons past. When she was smaller, she used to hang onto to a somber colored sleeve, then her older sister's arm. Later on, her own younger sister was the one skipping at her side and Hikari's arm pulled the girl back to a steadier pace.

"C'mon Hikari, we're moving on," Asuka said, snapping her out of her reverie.

*****

"I feel really awkward, you buying me lunch," the sister said.

"I ordered too much and I would have had to throw it away. Think of it as being a reward for being a true mensch," Asuka replied magnamiously accompanied by a sweep of her arms outward. "Really, you're the first teacher that I've really liked."

"Really?" Hikari asked.

"I mean I learned from my tutors, but most of my outside schooling has been for manners and charms." Asuka replied, speaking the last words like curses. Hikari didn't see anything wrong with learning how to behave from a teacher and looked at her blankly for a moment. 

Asuka had spent their walk asking questions about everyday matters, like tofu or kimonos. What surprised Hikari were the quiet minutes that the red haired girl spent digesting the information.

"How long have you been in Nippon?" Ibuki asked Asuka.

"Since the term began, that would be a month and a half. My luck that practically every Sunday afternoon would be rainy."

"So are your parents here too?"

"No," Asuka said. "I don't have any parents."

"I'm sorry," Ibuki said.

"In fact, I don't need any parents," Asuka added. "I'm my own woman."

That ended the conversation.

"This stuff is bland, I don't see what you see in it. I mean I like bread and all, but I don't think that I've got a wheat addiction. Why don't they serve anything Nipponese at school anyhow? I mean, it would cut down on the rice withdrawal."

"To teach these young women how to behave at a foreign dinner table. Most of the students will take two years of school to lay the basics and learn a little French, English, or German. Then they will go to a finishing school for a year to polish those manners," Ibuki responded. Asuka made a face. "These young women will be the wives influential men in the Shogunate or of wealthy business men. Those men will deal and dine with westerners. It's the second attempt to open to Europe after the failed rebellion."

"So the rebels wanted to open Nippon and failed, so there must have been a reaction," Asuka pondered. "In that reaction, anything European must've been unpopular and that explains why Hikari here has never eaten with knife and fork. Kind of the opposite of Muscovy where the forces that pulled Muscovy back to Rome won and the old icons were demolished and old boyars were dragged from their homes to learn the Viennese waltz."

"Exactly," Ibuki agreed.

"And that's what I mean, none of the other sister would have ever given me that answer," Asuka said, starting on her second rice triangle.

"But why now?" Hikari asked frowning slightly.

"Because Nippon is so far behind," Ibuki said, lowering her voice for the three of them. "The Shogunate kept power by defeating the rebels and the rebels' ideas. When they threw out everything European, they threw out the Europeans too, limiting them back to a small trading post. And in keeping out Europe they had to also limit the Church's influence. Without a church there is no experimental theology. The rebellion failed because in choosing the West and the Church, they had to turn their back on the emperor.

"They cannot coexist, a powerful Church and a man on the throne called the Son of Heaven. And without experimental theology, they can import all of the gadgets they want, but they will always be second to Europe. There, the theologians can exchange theories. Take elementary particles for instance. The experimental theologians of Europe have already figured out how to split heavier elements into to lighter ones and release vast amounts of energy, while here, philosophers have only recently accepted the concept of atoms instead of five elements."

*****

Hikari spent the rest of the meal in silence. While Asuka had followed the conversation, Hikari had been lost at the phrase "elementary particle". Her tutors had never mentioned those things, time had been spent on learning classic Nipponese composition, poetry, careful brush strokes of kanji, and arithmetic. She had considered herself lucky to have learned some French and even some algebra before coming to school. Much of the rest of her time was spent taking care of her little sister and learning about the household. Her older sister had been away at school. More than that, she had never seen the world laid out in such order, with such careful thought. Hikari felt inadequate.

Lost in thought, Hikari drifted to the tail of the students walking back to the stuffy dorm. A droplet thudded down on her face, heavy, wet, and cold. It startled her. The sky had become much darker. The most of the street vendors had gone and a few stragglers packed frantically. A strong gale pulled on her skirt and jacket. Ominous clouds raced overhead.

"Stay together," Ibuki's voice barely edged out the sound of the wind. "You, you, and you go to that store."

Calmly, they split off with instructions to return to that spot after the storm. That was before the thunder and lightning struck. The sounds exploded around Hikari, they were amplified by the buildings in rolling, rebounding waves. The crashing thunder crowded everything else out of her mind, it shook her to the core. It overwhelmed her sound, touch, and even sight. To her mind there was no Asuka, no teacher, no other students, only her and the thunder ripping open the sky above her. A bolt of lightning blasted into the ground only a few steps away from her, freezing everything in a brilliant moment of ferocious light. She reeled from it, dryly stuttering out a soundless cry. The rain began to fall in earnest. Mercilessly, the storm echoed from all sides. Hikari took off into the sizzling rain and disappeared, hidden by the curtains of windblown rain. Her heartbeat pounded at double pace. Her screams were eaten by nature's fury. Yoshi-hiko sprinted after her.

*****

As the rain fell, a boy and a girl took shelter underneath the eave of a building. They protected their precious bags of rice on their laps underneath their baggy clothes. The ground was clammy and uncomfortable, but they could not let the rice become wet. They sat with their backs to the storm letting the runoff strike the ground and splatter onto their backs. They waited for the storm to end and sat shoulder to shoulder. The girl put her hooded head on his shoulder.

Shinji sat resting. He enjoyed the sound of the rain. Under his layered clothing it was not cold. The weight of Rei's head was comforting. There was no one around, the storm had driven them indoors. There was no one to hide from. There was also the comforting weight of the grain on his lap. They had received their pay and would not go hungry for the next few days. The feeling of security made his aching muscles feel good.

He heard gentle cooing from somewhere in the distance. It was the sound of pigeons roosting from the rain. Gently, he handed his precious burden to his sister, who took it wordlessly and shifted her head off of his shoulder. He took off swiftly and quietly, following the sounds. The rain picked up and the thunder rang out.

After a few minutes, Ikari Rei shifted the weight of the bags for a moment. She looked around and saw a flat stone against the side of the building that seemed dry. She squatted on pin pricked legs, pulled a length of burlap from her voluminous clothes, placed the cloth on the stone, and shifted the bags onto the cloth. She stood up in a smooth and paced motion and stretched her legs. Experience had taught her that very few people noticed her if she moved slowly or sat still. It worked better if Shinji was close to her.

A shiver went through her body and the feeling that some part of her, more vital than bone or sinew, was wrenched and dislocated. She clutched herself and gritted her teeth against the sharp spasm of pain. Shinji had moved farther away from her; Rei hated that feeling.

Her patched trousers were sodden beneath the knee from the splattering runoff. She watched her silhouette etched briefly in sharp relief against the building with every lightning stroke. Rei waited and ached.

Between the explosions of thunder, splashing footsteps halted to Rei's left. She turned her head slightly to see the newcomer out of the corner of her eye.

It was a girl dressed in a soaked jacket and drenched skirt. Her shoes were caked in mud. Her hair lay plastered to her head. She panted heavily puffing out clouds of vapor. She clutched her tanuki shaped daemon close to her. They huddled against the side of the building. Lit by the fierce light that streaked across the sky, Rei saw that both child and daemon trembled uncontrollably,.

The freckled girl looked familiar. Rei's heart sped up. As she approached, the girl noticed her and rose, backing away. Rei remembered the intense cold and darkness, a phantom pain in her left side, a pain that she remember Shinji feeling. Shinji's pain, Shinji's fear and fatigue that left him trembling and nearly dying.

To Hikari, it seemed that a pale faced and quiet apparition has emerged from the side of the building. The face held no expression, but the red eyes beheld her with a terrible scrutiny. Like a jacklit deer, child and daemon looked as the white face stared at them within arm's reach. The red eyes struck her by their familiarity. In a smooth motion, a hand blurred out and struck her face. The loud crack was smothered by a sharp thunder crack booming around them. Hikari was thrown from her feet by the blow and lay sprawled in a wrist deep puddle. All of Hikari's senses were engulfed by the mixture of stinging and nettling numbness on the left side of her face. Yoshi-hiko had become a feral mountain cat, hair raised for battle and claws unsheathed . He launched himself at Rei with a spitting hiss. With nearly inhuman reflexes, Rei shot out a hand and smashed Yoshi-hiko to the ground. A foot flipped him over roughly and then stomped down on his belly. He tried to become a serpent, but the grinding force trapped him against the hardened ground. Rei's other hand dipped into her clothes and drew out a knife.

Hikari writhed at the violation against her daemon, it was a violation against Hikari as well. The grinding force on her daemon shoved straight past the ability of her body and mind to endure and stomped on some part deep within her. She tried to rise, groping and slipping in the mud. Her arm rose to reach the blade that was too far away.

"Let go!" she screamed, her voice breaking. Tears mixed and rain blurred her sight. "Please!"

Hikari began a scream of wordless shrill panic, but it was cut off by an arm wrapped her neck and another sinewy strong grip lashed under and over her right shoulder. The grip around her neck tightened as Hikari began to sob from frustration. She tried to struggle, but the world grew dark and heavy. It faded, and then fell completely into black.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Domestic Moments I

Outcasts

Notes

1) Thanks cevgar(). djtrainwreckx and I go way back. limulux and I go way back. Thanks to both of you guys. I agree with you that my prose got purple toward the end of the last chapter. The only thing to do is to move on and continue to practice my writing. 

2) In response to limulux's point about the Church and daemons, I can only say that daemons are a part of humans and the vast majority of those in the church do not have problems with them. The rest of the questions, I can address in the next chapters.

  
  


3. Domestic Moments

The rain had stopped, leaving the evening eerily quiet and calm. Rei had tied the bags of rice in a sling of cloth. She carried her burden with the cloth crossing from her left shoulder to her right side. Shinji carried a larger burden. Hikari was not heavy for a healthy girl, but she was as heavy as he was. Her arms hung limply around him. Her warm breath tickled the back of his neck. Shinji blushed slightly. Yoshi-hiko was in squirrel form, wrapped around the back of his human's neck. Rei led the way down the dark street.

One by one, bluish-white gaslights came on. A man, wearing a cloak of straw over his work clothes, lit the cast iron lamps. He walked past the children without noticing them. They continued passed him. Their wooden sandals clopped softly on the cobblestones. The night air was cool, which suited Shinji who began to sweat.

"I can carry her," Rei said, barely audible.

"It's OK," Shinji responded.

They walked in silence past the high fences. The crowded residences gave way to shops, which grew larger and less crowded as they walked. Occasionally, they heard a dog stir, but it laid its head back down after they had passed. A proud tom cat stopped his hunt to gaze at them with glowing nocturnal eyes. Rei's eyes met the cat's gaze and an understanding passed between them. The cat scurried back into a deeply shadowed alley.

"Silly tom, we don't want your mice," Shinji called softly after him.

When the moon had risen and traveled a bit above the horizon, they had reached their destination. It was a large and fenced off building on top of a hill. Rei and Shinji passed by the front gate and walked around the fence for a moment before opening a small gate. They carefully walked in, avoiding a bin of trash. Hikari stirred as they passed the lingering stench of rotten fish. Rei closed the gate behind them and they entered the darkened alleyway. They knew their way by memory. After twenty steps, Rei felt the fence to her left and found another gate. The gate moved as quietly as they did. It opened behind a tall skeletal bush. 

Shinji and Rei surveyed the hill and glanced around the sky. There was neither human nor daemon around. An old building stood before them, it looked large enough to house several families. The roof sloped down in gentle curves and turned back upward at the corners. 

They crept forward to the bush, latching the gate behind them. They ran, making small scuffing noises through the grass and fallen leaves. Their path cut angles to the hill face and led to the back of the building. Softly, Shinji knocked on the wooden frame of the door. Loud fumbling sounds came from within. A tall shadow formed against the translucent door and the door slid open to reveal a curvaceous woman. A faint sent of lavender scent surrounded them. Hikari stirred slightly. 

"Good night, Shinji, Rei," the woman said, standing aside to let them in. Her eyes drifted from the boy to the unconscious girl on her back. Her penguin daemon greeted them with a wark.

"Hello, Misato," Shinji replied.

"Hello," Rei said.

Misato stood aside to let the children in and slid the door close behind them. They took off their sandals and passed from the foyer into the house. Misato left for a moment and then returned with three cotton towels. Shinji carefully set the girl down on the ground and put a folded towel behind her head. Shinji looked up and saw that the woman's clear brown eyes were locked on the girl. Shinji followed the woman's gaze to the deep purple bruise on the girl's cheek.

"She's asleep," Shinji said. "She should wake up in two or three hours."

"Shinji," Misato said still looking at the girl. "Why don't you clean up and get ready? It's getting late, we'll talk about it later. I'll send out Rei in a moment. I need her help now."

"OK," Shinji said as he hurried to another room.

"Rei," Misato said. "I'll get a blanket. We can carry her in that."

*****

Shinji looked feminine for a boy. His face, hands, and feet had delicate bones. His face had not yet sprouted hair and his voice had not changed much. At the moment, he wore a blue colored kimono that had a feminine cut, a long wig, and a touch of makeup. He had painted a beauty mark near the corner of his mouth and softened the contours of his face.

Shinji entered a small room while checking the bow on his kimono. He slid the door close. The room was lit by a softly hissing gas fixture. The other door faced the entrance he had just walked through. There were three cushions. He knelt on the nearest cushion, another cushion faced it and was in arms' reach, and the third sat behind a knee high cherry wood desk. The desk sat facing the two seats. On the desk were some paper, a writing brush, an inkwell and a tasteful flower arrangement. After a moment, the door facing him slid open and a young woman's face peered in.

"Shinji," She said, shifting to stand fully in the doorway. "You're late."

"Hello, Sakura. Sorry, things came up," he replied. For a moment, Sakura stood there tapping her foot with her arms akimbo. A well bred golden dog daemon followed her, sat by her feet with his chin in the air. She was also attired in a dark blue indoor kimono. Shinji took in the sight of her. She was a pretty girl, well proportioned from head to toe. Her clothes and hair were simple and Shinji thought that they suited her. 

After his sight fixed on her, he saw deeper. A normal person's sight would have noticed more details with an extended look, as did Shinji's sight. However, the normal person would not have seen the faint aura of health that pervaded Sakura and lit her features. She stood out from the rest of the room. Her aura became brighter and more distinct. He knew her well and detected a slight blur that marred her usual distinct brightness.

"It's okay, staying up a little late won't kill them," she said, dropping her serious expression after a few moments. Her daemon did as well, lolling his tongue. "I'll get the first one."

Her footsteps shuffled away. Shinji sighed and cleared his throat, he would have to speak in a higher pitch. Things had come up and it had been a long day. Rei had surprised him. He had forgotten to stow the pigeons in a cool place, he hoped that Rei would take care of them. Shinji furrowed his brows for a moment and tried the send the thought to his sister. Footsteps interrupted him after a few seconds. Without knowing if his message had been heard, he turned his attention to Sakura, leading a brightly dressed girl of about fourteen or fifteen into the room. She wore a blindfold as did her parakeet daemon whom she held in her hands. He did not recognize either of them.

"Inoue Okiku, this is Shizu, Shizu this is Inoue Okiku," Sakura said, she put her hand on Okiku's shoulder and pushed down lightly to guide her to the cushion in front of the boy . " Please sit."

"Nice to meet you," Shinji said.

"Nice to meet you," Inoue replied. "Are you a doctor?"

Sakura kneeled behind the table.

"No, she isn't," Sakura replied. "But she has keen insight."

"Insight?" Okiku said uncertainly. "Why do I have to be blind folded?"

"Please remain calm," Shinji said in his false voice, which sounded quite natural. " I just want to look at you and your daemon."

Okiku was thin, but naturally so. Her hands, and nails looked okay to him. Her hair was raven black and glossy, she took good care of it. Her aura emerged. It was slightly below average intensity and average clarity. He leaned closer.

"I'm going to look at your eyes," he said.

"OK."

He lifted her blindfold by a little and looked directly from eye to eye. Okiku's eyes were etched with red veins and her eyelids were puffy.

"Do you have allergies?" Shinji asked. "To pollen or mold?"

"No," she answered. "It's just my eyes."

From his deeper sight, he saw the pattern from day to day, the irritation was in a regular cycle. That matched with pollen and mold as well, but the girl had just told him that she did not react to either.

"Okiku, when did you're eyes start irritating you?"

"When I came to town."

"Did anything change when you came into town?"

"I began my training."

"What do you do each day."

"Stuff."

"Well, what do you do first thing in the morning."

"In the morning, I wake up when Sakura calls us."

"And then?"

"Then I clean my teeth."

"And then?"

"Well, I get dressed and put on my makeup. And then training begins."

The girl was training as a maiko, which meant that she still wore the white face of the geisha apprentice. She took it off before bed to preserve her skin or in the evening to perform chores. That would explain the cycles of irritation and relief.

"Okiku, I want you to change the type of red makeup you use. Try to avoid safflower. There's a dye called cochineal, it comes from Mextica. It can be almost as bright as safflower, it's brighter than other dyes on the market. I've heard sailors talk about it."

He let the blindfold slide back into place. Sakura took some notes. The girl nodded. He looked at her teeth and asked her about the rest of her routine. Afterwards, he told her to try to take walks more often even during the winter.

Sakura rose and asked the girl to rise as well. Okiku gave a small bow.

"Your eyes, they are strange, but I like them. Good night," Okiku said before leaving.

"Thank you and good night."

Shinji looked over the next girl in much the same way. She was a slightly chubby girl named Etsuko. Even before his sight sank beneath her surface, he noticed her rank breath, her chewed nails, and traces of her makeup still on her face. He looked at her eyes. They looked angry, they were lined and dry. The cat daemon on her lap had dull fur and eyes. He let the blindfold cover her eye again.

"Why did you have to drag me out of bed?" Etsuko asked irritably.

"Because Miss Katsuragi is concerned about you," Shinji said. He felt his sister approaching.

"Well, I'm fine, can I go now?"

"If you want to continue crying, go ahead," said a quiet voice behind Shinji. The door slid close as inaudibly as it opened as Rei entered the room. Sakura and the other girl started.

"Etsuko, this is Rei, Rei, Etsuko," Sakura said.

"Pleased to meet your acquaintance," Rei said.

"Likewise," Etsuko replied curtly. "I don't cry."

"You are sad," Rei stated. "You cry in your sleep."

"Open your mouth please," Shinji said.

Etsuko looked ready to retort and instead opened her mouth. The fur on her daemon's back had begun to rise and his claws unsheathed and sheathed. Shinji could see signs of her breakfast and smell the parts of past meals. Her molars were ground smooth. He touched her lower jaw with his fingertips and she closed her mouth. He closed his eyes for the moment, trying to find the right words.

Shinji moved over a bit to let Rei kneel down on the cushion next to him. Her proximity comforted him. He opened his eyes again seeing the girl in front of him with his own sight, which saw her fatigue clearly. With Rei close to him, he could also see her with a pale overlay of Rei's deeper vision. Rei saw the shape and surface of the girl's emotion which rolled through her and her daemon like a billowing storm cloud.

"If you talk to us, maybe we can help you," Shinji said.

"I don't need your help," Etsuko said cooly and rose to one knee.

"Etsuko. Stop," Sakura commanded. "Sit."

After a moment hesitation, she knelt again, biting her lower lip.

"Etsuko, Madam Katsuragi puts her trust in them," Sakura told her.

"Look, you aren't looking after yourself, you don't have any nails to chew and your back teeth are ground worn," Shinji continued in a pleading tone. "Can you tell us a little why you're so upset?"

Shinji saw a flicker of some phantom image and knew that Rei had seen something.

"I'll be back," Rei said simply and left. 

"I don't need you help," Etsuko said through gritted teeth.

The three sat awkwardly in silence for a few moments, until the pale girl returned with a small ceramic bottle and a small cup. She poured a cupful of the limpid warm liquid into the cup and placed it in Etsuko's hands.

"Drink," Rei said. Hesitantly, Etsuko sipped the sake and then drained the cup. Rei refilled it.

"This is good," Etsuko said.

"Drink," Rei urged as she filled the cup again. The girl drank down a second, then a third cup in rapid succession. Etsuko's cheeks flushed from the unfamiliar infusions of rice wine.

"Your breath is foul," Rei stated in her nearly toneless voice. "Why don't you rinse with charcoal?"

The maiko looked ready to throw her cup at Rei, but instead took a sip and answered in a measured tone. "I don't like the taste of ash."

"Why?" the girl responded belligerently.

"Because."

"Because it reminds you of fire?"

"Yes," Etsuko admitted before drinking again. Rei refilled her cup.

Shinji saw another flickered image, the faded faint silhouette of a man and a woman.

"When was the last time you visited a temple?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Why have do you avoid your family?"

"I have no family," Etsuko said draining her cup again.

"Why have do you avoid your family?"

"I have no family," Etsuko repeated, her voice growing louder and a little slurred. Her daemon stood with its fur raised, its teeth bared, and claws out.

"Why have do you avoid your family?"

"I have no family!" Etsuko screamed and stood up, throwing down the cup. She raised her hand as if to rip off her blindfold.

"Etsuko!" Sakura yelled, moving quickly around the table. Etsuko stopped in her motion. The cup rolled in a spiral and came to a rolling stop in front of Rei. The pale girl picked it up, set down the bottle, and cleaned the rim of the cup with the front of her kimono.

"Why don't you have a family?" Rei persisted, unperturbed.

"Because they're dead!" Etsuko yelled and then fell to her knees. Her voice dropped to a near whisper. "They're dead."

"But why are you avoiding them?"

"Because they're gone."

"Do you really believe that?"

"Yes, they left me."

"Didn't you leave them?"

Etsuko's head rose sharply. Her were cheeks flushed. Here hands were clenched in fists. "How can you say that? How can you understand me?"

"Because I did not want to visit my mother's grave, either."

"Rei," Sakura whispered in surprise.

Shinji felt Rei's exhaustion, he had rarely heard her speak so much at a time. Rei poured herself a cup of the rice wine and downed half of it. She passed the cup to Shinji who finished it. The liquid warmed him from his throat down to his stomach. A moment of silence passed and then another.

"Where was your home?" Shinji asked.

"A village, near Ashikaga," Etsuko replied in a small voice. A tear slowly dropped down her cheek.

"When was the last time you saw it?"

"Last fall, before I came here."

Another tear dropped from her other eye.

"Why don't you visit it? It's not far from here and tell your parents that you're doing okay."

"Why don't we do that, a few days from now," Sakura said soothingly. "You should get some sleep."

Sakura helped Etsuko up to he feet and they left. Etsuko carried her now calm, but limp cat daemon. She gave a wondering look at the twins before leaving the room with her own daemon at her heels.

"I'd better give Misato her sake back," Rei said.

"Right," Shinji replied with a nod. "At least something might change for Etsuko."

Once Rei left, he slumped feeling slightly spent. He knew that the night was not over yet, but he felt good and proud of what Rei had done. Sakura entered and carefully closed the door behind her. The young woman carefully made a few notes and screwed the ink bottle close. Sakura knelt in front of Shinji.

"I wish that Rei had left the bottle, I didn't expect any of that."

"Neither did I, but it was a start."

"Yeah. I've never seen Rei talk so much before."

"She wanted to help her, she really did. That's why she pushed herself so hard."

"I would've never guessed that she would want to help someone else, I mean, so much."

"Rei finds it hard to understand other people. But tonight, she saw Etsuko's grief and wanted to help."

"Hmmm," Sakura said, pondering Shinji's statement. "I think that you're both amazing."

Shinji blushed slightly and looked away. "Really?"

"Yeah. You know, you don't have to act like a girl around me."

Shinji looked up and looked closely at Sakura and shifted to look at Sakura's side. 

"Your ears need cleaning," he said in his usual male voice.

"Really?" Sakura said.

"Please allow me," Shinji said settling back down on the cushion. Sakura rose and stood in front of the boy for a moment before lying down and putting her head on his lap. Hair long black hair flanned out sending out a wave of flowery scent. Shinji pulled out a small spoon of brass from his kimono and carefully reached into Sakura's ear. Her dog daemon lay on his side looking at them. His tongue lolled out playfully.

"And you just happened to have that with you?" Sakura asked playfully.

"It comes in handy."

"Both of you are getting stronger. I mean, I knew that something was bugging Etsuko and Etsuko knew I knew and started to avoid me. And the safflower problem, I would have never thought of that."

"I don't know if it's stronger, but it is clearer. When I looked at Okiku's eyes, the shine in them reminded me of the light at the bottom of a koi pond, sliding back and forth in a cycle."

"I don't really understand, but that sounds wonderful. Light at the bottom of a koi pond.

"Hey, Shinji, I've been meaning to ask you this for a while, but is Rei you're daemon?"

"Well," Shinji paused to mull his response. "I think that Misato said it best. Rei is no more my daemon than I am her daemon. Please turn over."

"I don't get it. You're confusing me tonight."

"How can I put this? My mother-now-in-heaven once said that she thought that Rei had swallowed my daemon."

"So couldn't they have gotten it out of her?"

"Well my mother suggested that and my father said that I must have swallowed her's first and that they should split me open first."

"Ouch."

"Yeah," Shinji paused in cleaning her ear for a moment and leaned closely to smell her hair. It smelled of it usual faint iris, a scent he thoroughly enjoyed, but there was also a sickly sweet scent that also rode on it.

"What?" Sakura said looking up at him and blushing slightly. Shinji mirrored her reddening for a moment and continued then to carefully clear her ear of wax. 

"Opium," he said after a spell of silence. "Your hair has the scent of burnt poppy.

"I could See it in you. Your light is blurred a little, it isn't as clear as it used to be. I wish that you wouldn't be around it, it's vicious, it nearly killed Misato."

"One of my clients smokes it now and then. You really See it?"

"Yes I see it. Your light is usually so clear and beautiful, now it's less clear. The smell is also starting to cling to your hair."

It was Sakura's turn to become silent.

"I won't tell Misato. I know you haven't smoked it yourself, but she still wouldn't like it. I don't like it either, I've seen some people stagger out of opium dens. Their eyes remind me of the eyes of dead fish."

"I know," Sakura said. "But I can't nag my client it's not my place. It was occasional at first, but it's more often."

"Yes, but you can look out for his health. Anyway, I don't want to nag myself, but... I don't want you to be mixed up in that. I don't want your light to fade anymore," Shinji said as he pulled away, finished with his cleaning.

"Is my 'light' really beautiful?"

"Yes."

She fell silent again.

"I've never looked at it that way, it's a challenge to keep his interest here instead of that world. Thank you, Shinji," She said, getting up.

"For what?"

"Caring," she said grasping him in a quick hug. Her daemon quickly licked his hand. Her face turned carmine, as did his. "Good night."

"Good night," he replied as young woman and daemon left. The contact with Sakura's daemon left him stunned. He would not have been more stunned than if Sakura had disrobed before him. Shinji stared at his hand where it had been licked. He was so caught up in his contemplation, that he didn't even notice Rei standing right behind him.

"Shinji," she said, eliciting a squawk of surprise from her brother. "The Horaki girl is walking up."


	4. Gendou I

Outcasts  
  


4. Gendou I  
  


A pair of pure white gloves held a letter. The typed missive had been intercepted on its way from Nippon to England by at the zeppelin station. It would be carefully resealed and sent to England on the next flight. 

A hooded serpent daemon curled around the man's arm with its head near the man's wrist. Her forked tongue flickered out at the letter.  
  


October 21, 1985

Dear Lord Boreal:

I have been in Nippon for two weeks now. The local Church representatives have been helpful. In spite of this, I do not trust Father Ikari Gendou. Perhaps it is my prejudice against a man who's daemon is a cobra.

Like the Celestials, the Nipponese put their surnames before their baptism names.

I landed in Kyoto and have been surveying the daemons of the populace. As expected, the daemons take on the forms of local fauna and legends. The match between daemons and the personality of the owner is also based on local mythology and culture. Here, the racoon is a trickster called a "tanuki". There are similarities to daemons of Europe where dogs are the standard daemons of the servant class and cats reflect a more fastidious personality. Father Ikari was evidently well travelled in his youth and had visited Hindustan. He is also an Oxford man, a graduate of Wykeham College.

Father Ikari loaned me a helper, one Brother Makoto Hyuga. He is an excellent worker and an intelligent man for a Nipponese. His English is passable.

As you may well know, there was an attempt to overthrown the Emperor fifty some years ago. The rebels were largely supporters of the Church and ever since, their has been suspicion aimed at the Church and its representatives. I must tread softly for we are still guests here. The suspicion is lifting slowly. My very presence on Honshu is proof of this.

Brother Makoto has explained to me that many of the clans that lost during the rebellion of 1932 do not dare show support for the Church presence now and the few that do, do so in secrecy. A few clans are willing to takes some risks for what our experimental theology has to offer.

Of particular note is the Horaki clan. The current head of the clan has no sons and sends his daughters to European run schools. The Horakis were fought for the Shogun in 1932. They joined the fight only after attempting extensive dialogue between the combatants and pleaded for clemency for the rebellious clans afterwards in the name of rebuilding and reconciliation. Right now they show cautious support for the presence of the Church, but they are once again "on the fence".

Another topic of interest is the Ainu. They are a minority of the population. The Ainu are Asiatic, but they are taller and have more facial hair. A community exists in Edo consisting of several thousand out of a city, which I estimate to be three quarters of the size of London: that is some seventy-five or so thousand souls. I plan on conducting a separate survey of the Ainus' daemons.

I have heard a rumor about the Ainu of particular interest. In 1932, they joined the rebels with promises of their own territory. Evidently, their wars against the Nippones occur on a regular basis. Three hundred years ago, the attempt to fight the Nipponese was led by a pair of twins who did not have daemons. They were reputed to be powerful sorcerers. I initially discounted this tale, but since then I have corroborated story of the daemon-less twins with the Shogunate's official records. Again like the Celestials, the Shogunate keeps copious records and they seem to be reliable. There are also rumors that a pair of daemon-less twins were sighted in Hokkaido years ago.

Most of the remaining Ainu live in Hokkaido. The answer to this mystery lies there. After a suitable sample of the populace's daemons has been examined in Edo, I shall travel north. If I can study them, it could be invaluable to the research that we have begun in Bolvangar.

I hope that this report proves useful to you.

I remain your faithful servant,

Justinian Avery Esq.  
  


The reader pushed his circular lense glasses up the bridge of his nose before folding his hands before his fully bearded face. Though Ikari Gendou wore a beard, he cleanly shaved his upper lip. He wore a black tunic over a white shirt and a pair of dark Western style pants. Upon his head was a black skullcap.

The door opened to admit an older man into the sparsely furnished room. Besides the wooden desk that Ikari Gendou sat behind, there was one other chair. The only decoration in the room was a scarlet tapestry with spidery white lines that traced out the tree of life. This sat squarely behind Gendou.

"Father Fuyutski," Gendou said.

"Bishop," Fuyutski replied. "Congratulations on your promotion."

"Mm," Gendou grunted in response. 

Fuyutski took the remaining chair. He was dressed just as simply in a priest cassock. His gray owl daemon flapped from his shoulder to the well scratched back of the chair. He gestured at the letter.

"The new General Oblation board?" he asked. 

"Yes," Gendou said. "There is no doubt about it; the Consistorial Court is on the move."

"Franciscans, Jesuits, The Sisters of Curie, The Court, just to name a few. It almost makes me wish that there still was a pope."

"There still may yet be one," Gendou replied.

"The Templars have little power left."

"They may surprise you. Mr. Avery is not the only one we must keep an eye on."

"Our resources are limited."

"Yes. Brother Makoto will observe Mr. Avery."

"Perhaps they wish to add some local children to their test sample."

"I doubt it, even Avery realizes our position here. We will continue to observe, that is enough," Gendou said. "We have finished the first phase of our preparations."

"The translations of the scrolls."

"Yes. The Dead Sea Scrolls."

"Everyone else considers them unadulterated nonsense."

"Let them," Gendou said resolutely. "But they show us the path we wish to take. We already know that the first one is in the far north of Europe."

"So do we send an expedition?"

"Indirectly and eventually, it is best to not show our hand."


	5. Pain and Awakening

Outcasts

  
  


5. Pain and Awakening

  
  


The storm pounded fiercely outside. Asuka, Ibuki, and stout Yamatoshi stood in a cramped book shop. They could touched the packed shelves on either side of them with outstretched arms. The middle of the room was occupied by a bench, which left two narrow aisles open to a third wall of books. The shelves on back wall were interrupted by a door. Behind them, a wrinkled proprietor looked up from where he knelt next to a table stacked three to four feet high with books.

"Would you young ladies like some tea?" he asked in a wavering voice.

"None for me, thank you," Ibuki said. Asuka and Yamatosi shook their heads.

The old man went to the back of the shop for the moment. Ibuki took a seat on a bench, Yamatoshi sat next to her. Asuka paced around with her hands behind her back. Siegsmyrth perched onto her shoulder, which was fine with her if he did not take off suddenly.

"It rains every Sunday," Asuka said. Siegsmyrth leaned toward her ear and spoke.

"Where are Hikari and Yoshi-hiko?"

"You know, I don't think that we saw her since the eatery. Ibuki-sensei, do you know where she went?"

Ibuki thought for a moment. "I can't remember which store she went to."

Hikari been spaced out all day, I have a strange feeling about this. Asuka thought. "I'm just going to nip out and make sure she's all right."

Asukia slipped out of the shop leaving the sound of bells in the air. A brief gust of rain blew in. Ibuki stood and blinked for a moment.

"Wait!" she yelled. "Yamatoshi, You stay here."

"Okay," Yamatoshi said sedately and continued to browse through pulp romance books. The bells rang as the door slid close again.

*****

Hikari pushed the covers off and stood up groggily. The side of her face throbbed and she did not know why. Yoshi-hiko was in squirrel form. He moved as sluggishly as she felt. Hikari lifted him to her shoulder. She looked around. The ceilings was very high and the walls far apart. Familiar well-crafted wooden chests lined the walls. Colorful drawings of carp and armored samurai hung on wall studs, works of a street artist that she had taken down years before. It was her room in Hokkaido.

Near a brightly burning brick fireplace, a small freckled girl sat on her futon clutching her tanuki daemon. Her face was buried in the his fur. The young girl rocked back and forth sobbing the same word over and over again. "Mama. Mama. Mama."

"That's us," Hikari said, but the small girl took no notice.

"We're dreaming," Yoshi-hiko said, sounding uncertain

Hikari opened her mouth to speak to the small girl, but the door slid open. Another young girl, her sister at seven years old came stumbling through.

"Hikari! Come quick, it's Mama!" the young Kodama shouted and ran back down the hallway.

Hikari looked up with tear streaks plain on her face.

"Wait," young Hikari hiccuped plaintively and charged after her big sister. The little girl ran awkwardly, burdened by the big tanuki that she hugged around the middle. The older Hikari pushed her tired body after them through the massive doorway. The dark hallway looked like a locomotive tunnel. She followed the muffled falls of stockinged feet pounding on the wooden floor. A ray of golden light spilled across the hallway. She glanced in to see figures bowed before a shrine and the gray smoke of burning incense. Hikari followed her into a second open doorway. 

She remembered this, she did not want to remember this.

A form lay on a futon in the middle of the room. It was a woman who was huge with child. Her ermine daemon lay curled on her chest. The form was still and silent. Her daemon was still and silent. It was Mama. It was Mama with a face drained of blood and long hair matted with sweat. 

Hikari remembered the gentle woman who tucked her in at night, who taught her how to play the flute and write her first kanji. Mama was a graceful and gentle woman, not the massive prone figure on the ground.

A middle-aged woman sat to one side of the futon, weary and drenched with sweat. The doctor sat on the other side, tired and shaking his head. Several aunts and a great-aunt lined the one side of the room, they wore grave faces. Female servants of the household lined up on the other side of the room looking down. All of their daemons sat still and quiet. One was bowed over and cried into the sleeves of her kimono. The gray bushy tail of her daemon poked out between her sleeves. The two young girls stood stunned. Hikari stood behind them. A fire burned cheerily in the fireplace. It was far too hot in the room. The smell of iron and several unidentifiable moist scents hung in the air.

"Mama?" young Hikari asked quietly. Young Kodama hushed her.

Kumiko. Kumiko was my mother's name. Hikari remembered dully. Minako, that is the crying servant's name.

Quietly and unnoticed by everyone except teenaged Hikari, two children slipped into the room. They were shabbily dressed and were as old as five year old Hikari. One was a boy with deep blue eyes and the other was a deathly pale girl with red eyes. The boy walked in front the girl. They approached Mama. He knelt and spoke to Mama quietly. Their expressions were somber. Teenaged Hikari started when she saw that no daemons were with them. She was planted in place, thought she wanted to push them away from her mother.

Stay away, she thought, but no words came out. Stay away from her

"You're hurt," the boy said. He linked hands with his sister and reached out and touched her mother's left arm. "You'll die if you keep trying.

"You'll die anyway? 

"You want help. We'll try."

Suddenly, the midwife jumped back and screamed and the doctor started as the still woman's eyes snapped wide opened, shining feverishly. The Kumiko's face was pale. She shot out a hand and latched onto the boy's arm with a white knuckled grip. Hikari could see the boy's face grimace in pain. The red eyed girl flinched as well.

Kumiko clenched her teeth and convulsed. Feral sounds of pain escaped her. All of the adults stirred. The crying servant stopped crying and looked up with hope on her wet face. Young Hikari and Kodama looked at the place that their mother gripped; both girls wore puzzled and worried expressions. They listened to the woman struggle. 

They had come to mourn, Hikari realized, looking at her aunts and great aunts sitting against the wall. Just like Kodama and I were, helpless.

The midwife reached out a hand to help and Kumiko's right hand snapped around the woman's upper right arm like a vise. The midwife gasped in pain. Kumiko slammed the back of that hand to the tatami mat and dragged the midwife face first to the ground. The midwife's right arm was trapped awkwardly behind her. Two aunts rose and tried to pry off the woman's grip, but they could not loosen it. The doctor came to observe and then moved away to prepare his herbs and medicine. Minako walked to her mistress and wiped away the sweat from Kumiko's brow with cool water from a waiting bowl.

Minutes passed and they heard the throaty grunts and groans of pain escaping from between the birthing woman's bared teeth. Older Hikari looked at the boy, his face twisted in pain and tears welled from his eyes. The little boy's knees shook. 

He's sharing her pain, Hikari thought and then winced at the next contraction and accompanying hoarse cry.

Older Hikari took a hesitant step and followed it with a shaky step, and then another. She knelt beside the servant. She reached out and touched Kumiko's face. Hikari's touch felt dull as if she were wearing padded gloves. She noticed that the shoulder of Kumiko's kimono was torn and her shoulder was lined with blood from the scratches her daemon's claws had inflicted. Their eyes were equally crazed. They jerked about spasmodically with each contraction, limbs moving without the woman's or daemon's control. Sweat shined on the woman's face. Spittle oozed in a thin line from the corner of her mouth. A cloth wiped it away. The woman's notrils flared with each breath.

Hikari was intimidated by the woman's intensity.

There was a brief pause and a spell of blessed quiet during which the fire could be heard over the woman's panting breath. Her tongue lolled out briefly when her head turned to its side. Gentle hands turned her head back up. A second towel was brought and water was carefully wrung into her mouth. The two children at her side panted as if they had run a day and a night without stop. Kumiko's eyes closed for a moment. The aunts again tried to free the whimpering midwife and failed.

The contractions came again as strongly as before and grew in intensity. A massive shudder ran through the woman's body. And then the screaming began.

Hikari clapped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes. Yoshi-hiko dug his claws in her and bit down onto the collar of her kimono. Each agonized cry rang through her ears and she could not shut them out. She could not shut the screams out then and she could not shut them out now.

Not again, Hikari told herself. Not again. I am no longer a child.

Hikari forced her eyes open; they were blurry. She wiped them and saw that her younger self and Kodama clutching each other. The smell the charred flesh hung in the air and a thin trail of smoke wafted from the boy's arm and Kumiko's hand. The boy was visibly weaker and would have fallen over if the pale girl did not support him. With each of the young woman's contractions, he grew more strained and his breath grew more ragged. Soon he was reduced to an asthmatic rasp. His sister was also breathing hard.

She's taking something from the boy, his energy, Hikari thought in surprise.

Hikari forced herself to watch and observe. She studied Kumiko's face, a face haggard from strain. Hikari could still see the beauty in lines and contours, though they were contorted in pain. Agony had robbed the woman of speech, but the look in her eyes told Hikari that she was still in control of some important part of herself. 

Stop, please stop, please make it stop, Hikari pleaded as she clumsily caressed the memory.

After long drawn out minutes of screams, Kumiko arched her back and heaved her burden upward. The birthing woman gave a soundless stutter and then out a deafening scream rented out of her lungs. It seemed impossible that her small form could contain that sound. Kumiko's hands twisted, bending the boy's arm. He lurched forward and fell, his sister still clinging to him. The arm of the pinned midwife was pulled sharply upward. The midwife gave an unheard scream and passed out as her arm was wrenched out of its socket. Hikari forced herself to listen to the earsplitting shout.

Kumiko pushed her life force out through her lungs with that cry. Hikari understood the penetrating scream. It was laced with agony, but it also rang of triumph. Her mother had mastered herself. The maid had jumped backward during the scream and left Hikari enough room to place her hands on both sides of Kumiko's face. Through the contact, Hikari felt a quake run through the woman's body. As the primal scream ended, Kumiko turned even more pale, shuddered, and settled down. Her grip had finally relaxed.

Silence resounded through the room. A high pitched cry came from near Kumiko, underneath the blankets. The doctor moved quickly forward. The futon became soaked and dark. When the sodden cloth could hold no more, blood pooled around her. Hikari looked down at the open eyes of the woman. Her mouth was slightly open, she was still. Locks of her hair had turned white. She had stopped breathing. The doctor held her new sister. He passed the squalling child to an aunt and then turned his attention back to the woman, but there was nothing he could do.

He and everyone else jumped at the light thump the boy made when he fell. Locks of his hair had also turned white. Before anyone could react, a commotion just beyond the open door drew everyone's attention.

Father, the older Hikari said to herself. The wooden framed doors crashed open. He stood their, nine years younger. The enraged twenty-eight year old stank of sake. He had torn out chunks of his fashionable beard and sideburns, leaving behind raw and bloody skin. His kimono was in a disarray and he gripped a katana still in its sheath. He swung it about wildly.

"You can't keep me from her!" he roared with a slur. "Kumiko!"

Horaki Ichiro stormed into the room and stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of blood. The midwife laid motionless near the dead woman. Then his blurry eyes focused on the strange children, the children without daemon.

"Monsters!," he yelled and charged forward.

The girl pulled her unconscious brother away to an exit. The man tried to draw his blade out its sheath. The women servants scuttled out of their drunken master's way. Unable to draw the katana, he gave an incoherent roar and lashed out with foot. The clumsy, but powerful blow caught the thin boy in the ribs and lifted him off of the ground and sent him crashing into a wooden stud. The wood cracked and the boy slid down in a limp heap. Several servants following Ichiro rushed forward to restraint him. His sister hauled the stunned boy up to his feet, and half carried him. She slid open another door enough to scamper through. Enraged, Ichiro managed to throw his panicked servants off.

"No master, they're devils!" one servant yelled.

Ichiro charged head first into the half closed door and staggered back. He drew out his blade. He wildly slashed his way through the door. Young Hikari followed them through the wreckage. Older Hikari followed as well. They ran down an impossibly long hallway and down another. A chill wind whipped freely through the house. 

She stopped as she saw several servants piled on top of her father at an open doorway. He struggled and raged incoherently. A snow storm rage outside. Out in the violent wind, blinding snow, and boundless cold she saw the full moon come out briefly from between the clouds and illuminate the boy and the girl who did not have daemons. The girl turn and stare in her direction for a moment with her sharp red eyes. The boy looked up dully. 

An icy phantom wind blew around her, but on one part of her cheek she felt the cold touch her clearly and wetly. She looked down and saw a spider made of melting ice cling to the side of her face. The door to the outside slammed shut and then she was left alone in the dark.

*****

Shinji crouched near Hikari's head. She thrashed in her sleep and turned away from the ice filled cloth that Rei applied to her cheek.

"That must be some nightmare," Misato said from behind him, noting the tears trailing down Hikari's freckled cheeks.

"She has a fever," Shinji said. "She got soaked. It'll get worse if we don't help."

"I guess a nightmare won't harm her," Misato replied.

"Sorry," Shinji said to Hikari. "You'll have to stay under for a little while longer."

Rei removed the ice and Shinji touched her cheek and willed it to heal.

*****

The spider on Hikari's cheek changed, it became warm. It was hand's span across and had a bright orange and yellow bulbous body. She tried to get it off but it resisted her. Yoshi-hiko could not get it to move either. It shifted its legs slightly but did not bite or attack her. The spider actually felt comforting. She was distracted from the spider by the sound of crying and let the spider stay where it was. Hikari turned around.

It was another overly large and familiar room. It was her room near Edo. Young Hikari cried alone in the darkness. Thunder roared and crashed outside, lighting her room through the wall panels. It was the year following her mother's dead. Hikari never liked storms and had her mother to comfort her in the past. But now she was not there. During that storm, Hikari had realized that her mother was never going to be there again. During that storm, the little girl had remembered the sight of blood, the unmoving form of her mother , and the memories she tried to hide away. The little girl had cried herself to sleep that night: afraid of the dark, afraid of the storm, and afraid of death.

The room began to feel too warm for the older Hikari.

*****

"Rei," Shinji said, wiping a light sweat off his forehead. "Is there something you can do?"

Rei nodded and put her hands on either side of Hikari's head. The sleeper finally settled down and rested fitfully.

"Thank you, Rei," Shinji said.

She moved and Shinji put his hands on her forehead and concentrated for a while. His hands grew warm. When he removed his hands, they had become uncomfortably hot and itchy.

"Rei, Shinji, I think that it's time to talk," Misato said setting down a basin of fresh water and a small towel. She wiped off Hikari's brow. "Her bruise looks better."

"Yes, Misato," Shinji replied.

"Who is this girl?"

"I don't know, " Shinji said.

"A Horaki," Rei said.

"From THE Horaki family?"

"Yes," Rei said.

"And how did she end up like this?"

"I struck her and then Shinji knocked her out."

"Why did you do that?"

"Because she is a Horaki," Rei said.

"Well I cut off the blood flow to her head to stop the fight," Shinji said, a little embarrassed.

"Okay, back up for a moment. Where did this happen?"

"Near the warehouses," Shinji answered. "We got paid and then we took shelter from the rain."

"Then what happened?"

"I heard some pigeons and I went to get them, they get fat off of the dropped grain," Shinji said.

"And then?" Misato pressed.

"She came in from the rain where I was," Rei answered.

"And?"

"I attacked her."

"Why did you attack her?"

"Their family nearly killed us."

"Explain, please," Misato said. She let some of the frustration show in her voice.

"We were children and they drove us out into the cold."

"How old were you?"

"Five or six," Shinji interjected. Unconsciously his left hand touched his right forearm.

"So you attacked her?" Misato asked cautiously after a pause.

"Yes," Rei said.

"Do you realize how powerful her family is?"

"No."

"Do you care?"

"No."

"Do you realize that attacking this girl could've make life very difficult for you two?" Misato asked massaging her temples.

"I would not have left evidence or a witness," Rei said evenly.

"Except that Shinji knocked her out and would not allow you to take revenge," Misato continued. 

"No," Rei said. "I would not have killed her."

"But you said that you would not have left witnesses."

"Once unconscious, I could make her not remember," Rei said. "Once I drew my knife, I knew that I did not want to use it."

"Have you ever done this to me?" Misato asked, looking at her suspiciously.

"No, you would have noticed," Rei answered.

"Rei did it once to a sailor who noticed us," Shinji added. "You know that some people on opium notice us more? Well, one fellow had too much and thought we were monsters and knocked himself out chasing us. Rei managed to make him not remember that time. The next day we tailed him and overheard him talking to some other people and he said that he did not remember a thing. He had a blank there, a noticeable blank."

"Okay," Misato said, relieved. "So did you do anything to that girl?"

"Yes," Rei said.

"You did?" Shinji said, surprised.

"I made her remember," Rei said.

"What did you make her remember and why did you do it?" Misato asked in a tired tone. She knew that talking to Rei required prodding.

"She remembers the night her family nearly killed us. It was just."

Rei fell silent. Misato looked closely at the albino girl. Rei had already spoken a great deal that night.

"Why don't we all get some rest," Misato said. "And in the morning we can return this lostling back to her school. And remember your abilities can't get you out of every scrape, even though you're both growing much stronger."

*****

Hikari woke up slowly. Her head felt heavy and her face ached. Yoshi-hiko got up to his four feet and assumed the shape of a white ermine. She sat on a warm futon in a borrowed kimono. Her hair was dry. Hikari rose to her feet and saw an adult form burrowed into a quilt snoring lightly. Not wanting to wake anyone up, she slid open a door and looked around. It led outside to a damp night. The outhouse sat right next to the exit.

After she had finished her business, she opened the outhouse door to find a disheveled looking woman wrapped in a blanket waiting for her. The woman's hair stuck every which way, but Hikari still saw that she was beautiful.

"Hello Miss Horaki, my name is Katsuragi Misato," the woman said around a yawn. "We should talk."

"I am Horaki Hikari," Hikari said as she drew herself up to her full height and her dignity. "Am I your prisoner, Miss Katsuragi?"

"No, but we should talk. You can leave anytime you like, but it's late out."

Hikari looked at her carefully. "Fine, can you bring me back to my school now?"

"Well, as I said it's late and I think that you should rest before you develop a full blown fever. Come back inside, it's chilly out."

Misato walked back inside and Hikari followed her into the room. Hikari admitted to herself that she was not feeling well. It was lit by a finger of gaslight.

"Please sit," the woman said, gesturing at the futon Hikari had slept in. Misato stuck her head into the next room. "Can you please get some tea and something to eat, thanks."

"Who were you talking to?" Hikari asked.

"Some people I want you to meet," Misato said. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine," Hikari said with as much certainty as she could muster. Misato leaned forward and reached out to Hikari, the girl flinched.

"I just want to see if you still have a fever," Misato said. "Though I can't blame you for being jumpy. You're still a little warm."

"Miss Katsuragi, your family used to live in Hokkaido didn't it?"

"Yes, they lost their lands in '30s," Misato said quietly.

"I'm sorry," Hikari said quickly, blushing.

"It's fine," Misato said. "I don't miss what I never had. And your grandfather spared mine at Esashi. That's all history."

A large black and bird waddled into the room bearing a tray on its flippers. Hikari stared.

"My daemon, Pen-Pen," Misato explained, taking the tray. "He chose the form of a penguin. A flightless bird that lives far to the South."

"Oh, good to meet both of you," Hikari said, she gestured toward the ermine sitting on her lap. "This is Yoshi-hiko."

"Nice to meet you too," Misato said while she poured Hikari some tea. The woman pushed the platter of rice balls toward the girl. "Help yourself."

"Thank you," Hikari said, taking one of the onigiri. It was moist and coated in sesame seeds. She took a cautious bite. "It's good."

"Korean style," Misato said as she munched one as well.

By her fourth rice ball and second bowl of green tea, Hikari felt better. Two contained generous slices of hard boiled egg and spiced ham and wore neat belts of seaweed. "That was good, who made them?"

"You'll meet the chef soon."

"Where am I?" Hikari asked around a massive yawned. She realized that she was completely off guard. Misato's mannerisms and beauty had put her at ease. The Nipponese woman, the feel of the tatami mat, the soft futon, the warm kimono, and the food had made her feel very comfortable and drowsy. She was surprised at feeling drowsy since she had just slept. The attacks seemed like a dream and her scary dreams had faded even farther away.

"You are in my home and a dormitory for apprentice geisha. Miss Horaki, please don't panic. I don't want to hurt you."

Hikari nodded dumbly. Misato rose and opened a door. A boy and a girl walked through the doorway and knelt before her. They were dressed in plain blue kimonos. The boy had blue eyes and the deathly pale girl had snow colored hair and red eyes.

Hikari's eyes darted back and forth and Yoshi-hiko hissed, his hair flaired up. Seeing them as small children in dreams was different from seeing them in the darkened room. The red eyes seemed sinister, though it was not the memories of the attack that struck Hikari the hardest. What loomed larger in her mind was the lack of daemons. They might as well have walked in carrying their heads in their hands.

The empty bowl of tea dropped from her quaking hands. Her heart thumped a doubled-time tattoo in her chest. The memories of blood, the screams, the scent of singed flesh came back to her. Her stomach roiled and her meal felt hard and heavy. Her stomach heaved and her dinner pushed up to the back of her throat.

Shinji saw her eyes dilate and smelled the fear from her. "Hello, my name is Shinji."

Hikari's breathing become heavy and short. She felt wide awake and ready to strike out or run in five directions at once, but she stayed rooted to the spot.

"Are you okay?" he asked as he leaned forward and reached for her forehead. "You were feverish earlier."

She propelled herself from his reaching hand, dumping Yoshi-hiko to the ground. "Don't touch me!"

"I'm sorry," Shinji said in a small voice. He sat back and pulled his hand back as if it had been slapped. Rei took it gently into her own. 

"I'm sorry," he repeated even more softly.

"Don't touch me, freak!" Tears came down her face. Dignity abandoned, she curled-up tightly around her daemon, who also trembled uncontrollably. "Don't touch me!"

Comforting hands pressed down on he shoulders. Hikari scuttled to the woman and buried her face into Misato's lap.

"That was unnecessary," Misato said and sighed. "Shinji, Rei, I'm sorry, but I don't think this is going to work. Not tonight. And Rei?"

"We are not people to her. An apology would be meaningless," Rei said with a hint of steel in her soft voice. 

The door clacked open and close once again. Sobs of fear and panic continue to wrack the girl's body. Slowly, she began to calm down.

"You hurt him badly," Misato said as she stroked the girl's hair. "I saw it in his eyes."

"It just scared me so much, I just had a nightmare. No, more like a memory," Hikari said in hoarse and clotted voice. Her nose was running. Misato handed her a cloth. Hikari blew her nose. "I'm sorry, but I'm imposing so much on you."

"Actually, it was Rei who started this mess and I'm helping her clean up. She's usually such a good girl," Misato said.

"But thank you, Miss Katsuragi."

"So you know them?"

"Yes, they were there when my, when my little sister was born. Tonight I remembered in my dreams that they were there. I thought that they were evil spirits trying to steal my little sister's daemon, like the servants said. But tonight I saw that they were there trying to help my mother."

Hikari felt as if more tears were to come, but her eyes and throat were dry. She closed her eyes and took a few gulping breaths.

"Tonight I saw that after helping my mother, my father, he was sad because he saw mother, my mother was dead. My father chased them into a storm with a katana. He was drunk. The boy was dying from what he had done. They went into a howling blizzard, because of my family. The girl turned around and looked at me. She remembered me.

"I don't blame her for what she did, knowing what happened. And tonight, I did the same thing as my father. I'm so ashamed."

"First lesson," Misato said firmly. "Their names are Shinji and Rei."

"Shinji and Rei," Hikari repeated softly.

"Are you feeling any better?"

Hikari lay there for a minute breathing.

"Yes, thank you," Hikari said giving Misato her lap back. Misato leveled a look at her and studied Hikari for a moment.

"I'm going to go see how Shinji is doing," Misato said. "You stay here, I'll be back in a moment."

*****

Hikari sat on the futon again feeling exhausted and sad. Yoshi-hiko sat on her lap again.

"I was scared witless, too," Yoshi-hiko said.

"I can't believe that I completely lost my head like that," Hikari replied sighing. "The girl - Rei had a certain amount of reason to hate me. I wish that she could've tried talking first, though."

"She did pull out a knife on me."

"I don't think that she would have used it though."

"What makes you say that?"

"Something about Shinji."

"Hmmm," was all Yoshi-hiko said.

They fell silent.

"I couldn't imagine not having you," Hikari said stroking his fur. She paused for a moment to retrieve the tea bowl that had fallen nearby and set it upright. Yoshi-hiko did not reply.

The door slid open again and Pen-Pen waddled through. Misato entered followed by a graceful young woman and her handsome dog daemon.

"Miss Horaki, this is Natsushiro Sakura. Sakura, this is Horaki Hikari," Misato announced. "I'm crashing with Rei and Shinji tonight. Sakura will keep you company."

Hikari mutely nodded. Pen-Pen carried the platter back out of the room as Misato left. Sakura left the room again with Misato's bedding and returned with a fresh pot of tea and a pair of drinking bowls. Her dog followed her heels every step of the way.

"Thank you," Hikari said as she took a bowl of the green tea. She did not feel much like talking.

"Your welcome," Sakura said. Sakura had a gentle and pleasant voice. In a moment she had laid out her bedding and gracefully sat down on it. She took a bowl herself. "How are you feeling?"

"I am... fine," she concluded lamely, her eyes did not meet Sakura's. They sipped tea for a while.

"You go to that school on the edge of town don't you?"

"Yes. I'd like to ask a favor."

"Yes?"

"Could someone show me the way back there, please?"

"Certainly, I had offered, but Miss Katsuragi had something else in mind."

"She probably wants me to face them again. They give me the chills, I can't help it."

"Neither could I at first, but once I got to know him, I knew that I had found a wonderful person."

"I don't want to talk about this right now, it confuses me."

"I understand," Sakura said, taking a drink. Hikari found herself trusting that friendly, gentle voice.

They saw in silence for a moment. Hikari stared at the fine white steam rising from her cup.

"What is school like?" Sakura asked.

"It's okay," Hikari said.

"I wonder what it's like. I wish that I could have learned more. I was taught flower arrangement, how to play the lute and the flute, I can write a simple letter, but there's so much more."

"In the morning we have French, English, Algebra, and then Sister Amelie's awful lecture. She has the same every day," Hikari found herself warming to her subject. She felt too tired to be cautious. "It's so boring. Then we have Etiquette and then Church History. Every other day we wake up extra early for gymnastics which is just stretching in one place. In the evening, we do workbook exercises and sewing. Some clear nights, Ibuki-sensei gives us an astronomy lesson with her own telescope. She made it herself. Those are the best."

"It sounds great, do you have many friends there?"

"A few, my closest is Asuka. She is actually from Deutschland."

"A foreigner."

"Yes, but I don't like to use that word. I've heard it used pejoratively too often."

"You're right, it doesn't feel right to use it for a friend. I don't want to be rude, but if she's Deutsch, why does she have a Nipponese name?"

"One of her great-grandmothers was a Soryu."

"Isn't that family from Edo? I think that I've heard of them."

"From what Asuka told me, they don't really welcome her. They disowned that daughter, I think that her name was Soryu Kyoko."

"Acutally, I heard about her from my grandmother. It caused a big ruckus back then. It would today too."

"It sounds like Asuka. I mean raising a ruckus."

"So she's a lively girl?"

"Yes, very. She's probably worried about me."

They fell into silence again.

"You'll be back in the morning," Sakura said soothingly. "You look spent, do you want to get some sleep? I'll be here, nothing bad is going to happen to you."

"Yeah, I'm beat. I'll try to get some sleep."

"Okay, wake me up if you need anything."

"Okay. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Hikari laid down. Between the dreams she just had and the knowledge that the daemon-less were nearby, she wondered if she would be able to sleep. The gaslight turned off, leaving the room in darkness. A solitary candle shed a faint light in the room. She felt a pair of hands gently adjust covers.

I have to see them again, Hikari thought. Even the girl, Rei, doesn't really threaten me, not anymore. My family wronged them. I have wronged them. Well whatever happens tomorrow can wait, I can't do anything about it now. Tomorrow can't be any worse than today.

Hikari mildly surprised herself by falling asleep moments after her head settled into the pillow.

  
  


More notes:

1) Thanks to limulux for the medical consulting.

2) Thanks again for the interest and especially the reviews. They've got me thinking harder about this story.

3) I have a lot of people to thank for my writing. Tonight, I just wanted to give props to A. Zuckerman who helped me start in the ninth grade and introduced me to N. Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones".


	6. That Same Night and the Morning After

Outcasts

  
  


+ I looked over what I did for chapter 6 before after I saw cevgar's comment. I thought that I could do better so here's my best shot at it. However, I'm not going to get hung up over a single chapter. (thubar 2000)

Belated Disclaimer: I do not own His Dark Material's Trilogy or N.G. Evangelion.

  
  


Part 6.

  
  


Natsushiro Sakura yawned delicately as she lugged her futon into the room. Her daemon echoed her with a canine yawn of his own. The seventeen year old was slightly tousled.

"Hey, Miss Katsuragi," Sakura said. "What's this about?"

"Sorry to get you up so late," Misato said. "But there's a guest I need you to take care of."

"Ooo izit?" Sakura asked around another yawn.

"Horaki Hikari."

Sakura stopped dead in her tracks and took a long careful look at the rumpled looking woman. 

"What is a Horaki doing here?" Sakura asked. The young woman felt far more awake.

"I'll explain later, right now she's upset and needs a friendly face. I think that you'll do better than I will."

"Understood. Hi Shinji, Hi Rei," she said as upon entering the study.

This was the same room where Shinji had examined the two maikos. A small blue flame danced in its glass fixture, hissing gently. The fire threw shifting shadows about the room. Misato's futon laid in a heap where she had dropped it next to the door. Pen-Pen sat idly on the heap of cloth. The table and cushions had been pushed off to one side. Shinji knelt over the table, cleaning his face from a basin. Rei smoothed out bedding onto the tatami mats on the other side of the room.

"Good night," Rei responded.

"Hi," Shinji said without looking up. He continued to remove his false face.

"Shinji, I'll take care of the towel and basin, otherwise one of the girls might see you," Misato said.

"Thank you," he replied listlessly.

Sakura looked at him intently. The lighting engraved deep shadows on his face and made the boy's face look skeletal. "Did something happen to Shinji?

"Nothing," the boy said.

"If you want to talk about it..."

"Sakura, she's waiting," Misato said firmly. She locked gazes with her former apprentice for a moment

"Well, good night then Shinji, Rei. I'll talk to you later Shinji, okay?" Sakura said, but did not receive a response. Sakura turned back to her mistress and nodded. She gathered up her futon in her arms. 

Misato led Sakura from the room. The closing door resounded in the quiet room.

Rei looked at her brother. He had finished with washing his face and was carefully wiped it dry. Rei could feel that he was not well, but could not put a more specific name to the feeling. Rei sat in the bedding with her chin on her hands mulling over the billowing clouds that she saw within him. He walked over to her wordlessly and lay down beside her. He lay on his right side as he always did. Rei lay on her back as she did every night. She felt his warm breath on her left shoulder.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him.

"I'm okay," he said without conviction.

She knew that he was not telling the truth, but she could not find any more words to say.

"Goodnight," she said. She felt him curl up against her, so she turned toward him. He bit his lower lip and buried his face against her. Shinji encircled her with his arms. She parted her knees and allowed his legs to entwine with her legs. Wordlessly, she let him cry. Rei could feel his warmth, his heartbeat, his Rei felt the weight of his falling conscious drag her under. As Rei lay on the brink of sleep, Misato returned to the room. Rei could smell the woman's flowery scent as she bent over to survey them. Misato considered them for a few long seconds and opened her mouth briefly to say something, but decided against it.

"G'night," Misato whispered instead. The woman turned and walked away to prepare her own bed.  
"Goodnight," Rei responded and slipped away herself.

*****

Shinji quietly entered the next room and hung Hikari's laundered school uniform near the fireplace. He fed the fire another log and stoked it up a bit. He then retrieved a brush from the top of Misato's wooden bureau. For a moment, Shinji saw himself in the large oval mirror. The mirror was framed by the same richly colored dark wood, carved with the evergreens and animals peeking from between the trees. A scrawny boy looked out from the looking glass. Shinji quickly turned away from his reflection. He instinctively looked down and saw the corner of a sepia photogram underneath a bottle of scent. He shifted the glass decanter to look closely at a picture of two toddlers and their mother. The children stood in kimonos next to the woman who knelt beside them. They all wore serious expressions.

Rei still wears the same expression, he thought and replaced the perfume.

As he looked up again, he saw Hikari's reflection in the mirror. The girl slept deeply. He trained his sight on her and saw that her fever had subsided. Beside her, Sakura stirred slightly in her sleep. Shinji crossed the room and touched the young woman's exposed hand with his. He leaned over her. The scent of her unwashed hair reminded him of the tang of freshly cut grass.

"Thank you, Sakura, I'm sorry, but I didn't really want to talk last night," he whispered. She settled down a little. He gave her a small smile and exited the room.

He re-entered the study. The futons were piled onto one side of the room and the table had reclaimed its place. Misato and Rei sat with a plate of leftover rice balls from the previous night and a pot of steaming tea. Shinji took a seat next to Rei. She handed him a somewhat stale rice ball. Shinji handed Misato her brush.

"Thank you, Shinji," Misato said and set the brush down at her side. "I don't think that Miss Horaki will press charges, but I want to make sure."

"Whatever you think is best," Shinji responded distantly.

"Look Shinji, I know it can't be pleasant to have someone react to you that way, but you can't let it get to you that much."

"I know that," He replied irritably. He filled his mouth with food and studied three objects he had taken out of Hikari's uniform prior to washing it. On the table sat a curved knife in its wooden sheath, a small jade vial on a delicate silver chain, and a closed money pouch.

"I've known you for a long time and you're brooding over it."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of him," Rei interjected in her quiet voice.

"Eh? I suppose you'll have to at that," Misato replied. "So how are you Rei?"

Rei seemed to search for an answer in the green depths and broken leaves sitting in her porcelain cup.

"I don't know," Rei responded and then drained her cup.

Misato slurped her tea. It was her only response to Rei's usual answer.

Shinji broke the silence. "So what do we do now?"

"Sakura will tell us when Miss Horaki is awake. They'll have breakfast and then you'll guide her back to school or at least as far as she'll let you," Misato said. "For now, we can only wait."

"Why do you want us to guide her?" Shinji asked.

"To acclimate her to you. Today is another day. She'll probably feel ashamed for acting like a human, being high born will do that sometimes," Misato said while brushing her luxuriant hair.

Shinji sat quietly deep in thought. The only sound in the room was the swish of the brush.

"Rei," Misato said. Rei slid next to her and Misato tried to straighten out the girl's hair without much success. After a few minutes, Sakura walked in from Misato's room and quietly slid the door close behind her.

"Good morning, all," she said. "Sleep well?"

"Is she awake yet?" Misato asked. She stopped the brushing.

"Almost, I think that she's lounging in for a few minutes. I'm going to get breakfast for us. Want me to get you anything?" she asked, looking around. There were no takers. She walked over to Shinji and snapped her fingers in front of the dazed boy. He broke out of his trace with a startled look and saw Sakura and her daemon looking at him.

"Oh hi," Shinji said dumbly.

"Hey, how are you?"

"Okay, I guess."

"Don't be too sure," she said smiling at him and then left the study.

"Shinji," Misato said firmly.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sakura is my best girl. You are not to steal her away from me."

"I"ll try my best not to," he replied in a solemn tone.

"That's all you can do."

*****

Hikari and Sakura entered the study. Hikari clutched her folded uniform to her stomach. Yoshi-hiko had pushed himself into his ermine shape, though he would have felt more comfortable as a large and warm tanuki or as a well-armed badger.

Misato and the twins sat around a table. The twins had changed into worn and well-patched tunics and trousers. Hikari had clenched her will and her breath in anticipation of seeing them. They did not seem as threatening to her in daylight, but the sight of them still made her feel queasy. The small hairs on her arms and back of her neck had risen.

Misato stood to address Hikari. "Good morning did you sleep well?"

"Tolerably well," Hikari responded, relaxing her breathing. "Thank you for your hospitality."

"Not at all, you've graced my home, Miss Horaki," Misato replied formally and bowed. Hikari bowed in response.

"Nice to meet you Miss Horaki, I'll see you around then," Sakura said with a bow, her daemon dipped his head in suit. "See you later, Rei, Shinji, Miss Misato."

She's taken a step back from yesterday, Hikari thought. Misato's testing the waters, seeing how I will react. She's also letting me save face after yesterday. I wish that it wasn't necessary.

"I took out your things to clean your clothes, Miss Horaki," the boy said. "They're all here."

Hikari stepped forward, giving the twins as much berth as possible without going too far out of her way. First, she picked up the dagger and unsheathed it. The sheath had let it breath and the blade was already dry. She replaced it into the wooden sheath and studied the necklace next. The seal around the neck had not been disturbed.

Stupid girl, Hikari said to herself. You didn't even think to use your knife, yesterday.

"Miss Misato? May I borrow these clothes?" Hikari asked. She felt a little rude asking that, but she did not want to put on clothes that the boy had handled.

"Certainly," Misato said.

Hikari pushed the sheathed blade into the light blue sash of the borrowed kimono and fastened the necklace around her throat. She then tucked the kanji covered jade into her kimono. As an afterthought, she tucked her money pouch into the sash as well. Once Hikari finished her preparations, she turned back to her hostess.

"Miss Horaki, I deeply apologize for what has happened," Misato said solemnly, going down to her knees and bowing before Hikari. The boy followed Misato bowed as well and tugged onto his sister's sleeve. She kowtowed as well.

"You should not apologize," Hikari said adding emphasis to the 'you'. Misato rose from her kowtow.

"I can provide you with other guides if you prefer," Misato said. The twins rose and entered the next room. 

"No, this is fine," Hikari said in a near monotone. "Thank you again."

"You are welcome to it," Misato said.

"I think I should get going," Hikari said, though she did not want to join the daemon-less siblings.

"See you later, keep the kimono if you like," Misato said as she rose. She led Hikari to where the twins waited.

"I'll return it when I get the chance. Bye," Hikari said with a final bow.

"Good bye," Misato said and returned the bow. She then exchanged farewells with the twin as they entered the foyer.

Shinji and Rei tied on wooden sandals. Hikari pulled on her black leather shoes.

The door opened onto a cool foggy morning. Dew coated the grass and the few leaves that lay on the lawn and a pale coin of a sun had risen above the rooftops. The sun shed light feebly through the mist.

Hikari and Yoshi-hiko followed their guides from several steps behind. They led her to the alleyway and back onto the cobblestone paved street.

She brooded irritably, reviewing the events from the day before. Hikari broke out of her thoughts momentarily and noticed that the boy was looking back at her. She looked away sharply. From the corner of her eye, she saw his shoulders slump slightly, but she derived no satisfaction from it.

After that, the girl checked over her shoulder for Hikari. Hikari looked back matching the red gaze. The albino girl calmly turned forward. Somehow the lack of reaction irritated her even more. Hikari's hand touched the small blade in her sash.

The silence was awkward and unfriendly. The mood matched her sharp and forceful movements. Her shoes struck the ground as she plowed through a pile of damp leaves. She did not feel like walking around them. A minute later though, she felt a bit silly with her wet feet when she had been trying to maintain an icy dignity.

As they walked, the fog lifted as the sun rose. Shops opened up. The occasional pedestrian became several. None of the people gave them any notice. They looked past the group of four and around them. Somehow the pedestrians managed to unconsciously avoid the three children and the daemon. Yoshi-hiko bared his teeth at a man bearing a pair of pails, but neither man nor mangy dog daemon noticed him. Hikari found it eerie and pulled her arms tightly to herself to chase away the gooseflesh.

Eventually the paved road gave way to hard beaten earth and they emerged from a side street to the bustle of the open air market. Hikari recognized the eatery from the morning before.

"I can find my way from here," Hikari said and walked swiftly past the twins into the thickening crowd. She looked back briefly to see the twins standing at the edge of the marketplace away from the mass of people. Hikari turned away and made her way back to school.


	7. On the Train

Outcasts

  
  


7. On the Train

  
  


Hikari lay belly down on the soft flannel bedclothes with her chin buried in the pillow. She wore a blue-gray indoor kimono. Her chest was squashed in that position, but that was preferable to lying on her back. A thick red line of pain ran across the back of her rib cage. The bandage hugged too tightly for comfort, and the ointment made her smell like an old granny. Yoshi-hiko lay to her right, also prostrate with his furry chin on her pillow. As a tanuki, he was larger and had more articulate limbs than an ordinary racoon. Hikari's view was dominated by an ornately carved wooden headboard.

On the bottom bunk, Asuka stirred in her sleep. The Deutsche girl gave a phlegm-filled cough and then began snoring again. Sister Ibuki Maya napped on a red cushioned divan. She wore a gray utilitarian kimono. A sheaf of half-read papers covered her face. Her dove daemon perched over her head bobbing gently, sleeping like his mistress.

It was quiet. Hikari disliked the silence. The train ran so smoothly that the wind rushed past with only a faint whisper. 

Her tanuki daemon yawned.

"Why don't we try getting some sleep?" he asked softly.

"I would except that I feel like I've slept through the past two days," she said tiredly.

The doorbell rang, causing Asuka to stir and move about. Hikari slowly maneuvered her arms to lug herself up, but Sister Ibuki had already awoken. The woman removed the papers off of her face and rotated her legs off of the divan. The rest of her body followed the motion, and then she stood up. Her daemon flipped his wings as he awoke. Ibuki opened the door to the sitting room. Hikari slid a little to her left on the bed to look through the door. Ibuki turned to her left and opened the door to the outside. The dove daemon winged over to her shoulder. The sound of the rail and the wind rushed in scented with dust and the acrid flavor of half burnt coal spirits. Hikari could see the silhouette of a man against the light outside. They spoke through the grille of the outside door for a few exchanges. The man left. The woman bowed politely after him and then closed the cork lined door and shut the out the noise again.

Ibuki reentered the room and bent down to her patient. She fiddled with something; it was probably the ice pack that lay on lightly on the sick girl's forehead. The ice was suspended from a cord attached to the bed frame above. The Sister looked up at her other former pupil.

"Couldn't sleep?" she asked Hikari. The dove perched on the woman's shoulder.

Hikari shook her head with a pivot around her chin which was still embedded in the pillow.

"No," she croaked and then cleared her throat. "Excuse me."

Maya walked behind Hikari for a moment. Glass clinked on glass. Maya handed her porcelain cup of water. Hikari pushed her sluggish body into sitting position. She gritted her teeth and gave out a hiss of pain that ran across her back. Her feet dangled over the side of the top bunk. Yoshi-hiko scampered next to her. Hikari took the waiting cup and drank. The water was surprisingly cold and refreshing. A few rounded chips of ice clinked down to the bottom of the glass. Hikari tipped the glass back and slowly crunched on the ice. There was no sense in wasting the luxury.

"Thank you, Ibuki-sensei," Hikari said softly, handing the glass back to Ibuki.

"You're welcome, Miss Horaki," Ibuki said with a slightly sad smile. "But I am no longer your teacher."

"Please call me Hikari," Hikari replied. "And you were the best teacher there, so please, let me call you sensei. It's a fair trade."

"OK, Hikari," Ibuki said. "I liked teaching you, both you and Asuka."

"I think that I'd like to try sitting now."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Hikari said as she swung herself onto the ladder. The motion sent a searing ripple of pain across her back. She held in an exclamation with her lower lip between her teeth. She looked down at Asuka who was still flushed with fever. Her daemon was a lump underneath the covers.

"How are you feeling?"

"I am OK," Hikari replied. Her descent sent twinges of hurt through the welt. She opened the door to the next room with hopes that Ibuki would join her, but the nun had already bent down to her patient. "Who was that?"

"That was one Mr. Avery, the British gentleman who helped Miss Soryu past the foreign reporters."

"Oh," Hikari said. "I wonder, what were those gestures she made?"

Her sick friend had leaned heavily on her friend and her former teacher. Asuka refused to be carried to the waiting private car. Two men and a woman interposed themselves between them and the train. A photogrammer shot a picture of them with an explosive flash. After recovering from the moment of blindness, Asuka gave them a thumbs up sign to the three reporters and then stuck out her tongue while pulling down the bottom of her eye. Mr. Avery had appeared out of nowhere with a train conductor and rescued the three of them.

"I would imagine that they were rather rude and leave it at that," Ibuki-sensei said evasively.

"OK, I think that I'll try sitting," Hikari answered calmly. 

Yoshi-hiko negotiated the ladder and walked after his human into the sitting room. She opened the door to the next room hoping that Ibuki would join her, but the nun had already bent down to her patient. 

"I'll just be in the next room," Hikari said.

"OK," Ibuki replied without looking up.

The small room was opulently decorated with a pair ornate chaises, a table, a book shelf, thick Persian rugs, and a mural on the ceiling. The mural was a faded map that bore sea serpents, a mermaid, and a compass of clouds puffing their cheeks and blowing each direction.

A trio of massy and utilitarian trunks intruded into the midst of luxuriant carvings and thick folds of cloth. Hikari leaned over a chest and tugged the curtain cord. She shied away from the brightness. Her eyes adjusted and she saw the late afternoon sun shined from the horizon. Long shadows tumbled down vast man-made steps. Curved roofs nestled among the mixed skeletal trees and evergreens. Scattered rays of sunlight gleamed off of the terraced rice paddies. A trio of harvesters stopped to watch the train. Hikari waved to the stooped over old man and woman and a man who was probably their grandson. The burly young farmer was already bent a quarter of the way over. They did not respond and probably did not see her. Hikari thought that she saw three familiar rough and honest faces, and her breath caught in her upper chest for a moment. 

Hikari pulled the curtain back over the glass until there was a space two hand spans wide left open for light. Hikari settled down gently on top of her trunk and leaned her head against the thick curtain. 

The cloth was slightly dusty, but she was not in the mood to care. It vibrated slightly, which suited her. She could finally feel the tremendous velocity of the train. Her breath blew a foggy fan across the glass. Her daemon settled against her. Absentmindedly, she ran her hand through his warm fur.

Home, she had often thought of it before going to bed. Now she was headed home and the thought of her ancestral manse and fields nearby filled her with mixed feelings. She thought back to the events of yesterday.

*****

The storm had left scattered branches and twigs over the school grounds. In a nearby grove, a bolt of lightening had left two charred pieces of a tree that had been down the middle. Hikari picked her way around the deep puddles in the path. She carried the squirrrel-shaped Yoshi-hiko over the muddy ground.

She felt tired, tired from being tense and irritable. She disliked her fear. She was ashamed of having been so helpless during the storm and against the albino girl. She was confused by the dreams that seemed so real and seamlessly melded with the rest of her memories. It was as if a sheet had been pulled off to reveal the two children who stood next to her dying mother. 

Hikari attempted to distract herself by concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other until she found herself at the front stair. She ascended the last two steps and pulled on the massy iron ring of the door. The tall and forbidding portal opened reluctantly.

The door boomed close behind her. Hikari carefully wiped her shoes onto the mat. The hallway was large and gloomy. The silence amplified her footsteps. She took a left and a right toward the dormitory. The only features on the doors were the strips of the paper that bore the students' names. Gas lamps, which were turned off, hung between each door. A simple wooden cross hung on the wall at every intersection.

Hikari opened the door to the narrow room and heard low snoring. She pulled off her shoes and walked over to the bunk bed. The curtains were drawn on the windows. The air smelled musty. She dropped Yoshi-hiko and her uniform onto the neat lower bunk. She climbed the bunk ladder and saw a mass of sweat-matted red hair fanned over the white pillow. Asuka huddled under the sheet. Hikari reached over Asuka touched her sweat coated brow and found that it was burning hot. A damp cloth had fallen off of her forehead. Hikari picked it up and was ready to change it when Asuka turned onto her back and snapped opened her eyes. The fiery girl's usually sharp and focused gaze flicked around aimlessly and glazed.

"Mama?" Asuka asked in a small child-like voice that startled Hikari. Hikari windmilled her arms to regain her balance on the ladder. Asuka closed her eyes again and slipped back into her restless sleep. Her breathing was labored.

Hikari descended and recharged the cloth at a bowl that sat ready on a bureau. She set the cool cloth on Asuka's fevered brow. She looked at her friend again and noticed that Siegsmyrth's perch was empty. Nervously, she looked around for a moment and then cautiously teased Asuka's sheets open to see a red fox daemon curled up next to her. She was relieved by the sight of the daemon, but also slightly confused.

Didn't she say that her daemon doesn't change? Hikari thought. She dropped the sheet guiltily when a rapping sounded at the door.

"I'm jumpy today," Hikari whispered as she descended once again to answer the rapping.

A classmate stood at the doorway looking down at her feet.

"Hello, Kitasawa. What can I do for you?" Hikari said, putting on her best face.

"Miss Horaki. You're to come to class, Sister Amelie wishes to see you," Kitasawa said. The girl looked slightly nervous, but that was usual for Kitasawa.

"I'll come right now," Hikari responded. She pulled back on her shoes and gingerly pulled the door close once Yoshi-hiko had joined her. She followed her classmate to the waiting nun. 


	8. Scent of a Woman

Outcasts

  
  


8. The Scent of a Woman

  
  


Hikari and Kitasawa had approached the classroom door far too quickly for Hikari's comfort. Kitasawa knocked three even knocks. Sister Amelie opened the door. The nun looked ready to speak, but froze with her mouth open. The habited woman shut it slowly, and stepped aside to allow the girls to walk in.

The class was quiet enough to hear the rustling of leaves outside. Kitasawa walked quickly to her desk.

Hikari stayed in front of the class. Her tasteful blue kimono was bright against the black of the nun's habit or the dun of the students' uniforms. Hikari bowed deeply to the nun and spoke in her most polite tone. "Please excuse my tardiness, ma'am."

"No, I don't think I will," the nun said quietly and harshly.

A gasp rippled through the classroom, punctuated by muffled exclamations. Hikari was surprised as well. She straightened herself and looked into a pair of shining eyes. Unlike the nun's usual dry and dull gaze, the blood fissured and pale green eyes were alight with something akin to hunger. The woman's lips were compressed into a thin pale line. An equally pale tongue flicked out to moisten them.

"I would have thought that you would have the decency to wash off that reek," Amelie said, savoring the words 'decency' and 'reek'. The disgust was plain in her voice. This voice was barely recognizable as the relentlessly dull lecturer. "And clever enough to repair your disheveled state."

It was then that Hikari detected the sweet and sensual scent of plum blossoms clinging to her borrowed clothes. The perfume clashed with the chalky air. She resisted the urge to sniff her own sleeve.

"Did you enjoy your tryst?" the nun asked, and sucked back saliva at the end of her sentence.

"I would not bring shame my family like that, ma'am," Hikari said formally. Her back straightened and she faced her interrogator. She was not going to back down, not even under the woman's unblinking gaze Yoshi-hiko stared up at the iguana daemon at the table. He shifted shapes from a squirrel to an ermine and sat up straight on his back legs.

"I know all about you girls. I have warned you again and again. Yet at the first opportunity you steal away on the Lord's day to Sin."

Hikari kept silent and lifted her chin. She knew that she was in the right. Especially not after the past day. The nun had insulted her. Now the nun was slowly stalking around her in a circle.

"Do you have anything more to say?" the nun hissed directly into Hikari's ear during a pause in her steps. Hikari could feel the gazes on her back from her classmates. That was just another reason not to falter.

"No," Hikari responded evenly. "I have said the truth and that is all I have to say, ma'am."

"Then strip," the woman commanded. "Down to your shift."

Hikari moved with a martial stiffness in her movements as she untied the bow on the kimono. When the sash loosened, her knife and small purse slipped out. The knife struck the ground with a loud thunk as the pouch clanked on the ground. Hikari cursed herself; she had forgotten it in her anger.

"What is this?" the nun asked as she picked it up. Her knees popped audibly as she rose. She took the curved knife in her hand. The sheath and the handle were made from a pale wood and inlaid with squares of a darker hue. A tug slid out a steel blade that bore etched waves. Amelie quickly sheathed the blade again. "A knife?

"Why were you carrying this?"

How dare she touch my mother's blade? she raged silently. Hikari was too angry to speak.

"Why were you carrying this?" the nun asked again, loudly.

"To protect my family's honor," Hikari declared loudly.

"Honor, shame," the nun mused aloud. "Could it be that you were ready to commit a mortal sin?

"You see. I have heard of this willingness in Nippon and in China to harm yourselves.

"You there, are you carrying a blade? Such as this?"

The girl shook her head. "No ma'am."

"You?" the nun asked, jabbing her finger out. "You?"

"No, ma'am," another classmate replied in a subdued voice.

"Kitasawa," the nun commanded.

"Y-yes?" the girl stuttered. Hikari felt contempt for her teacher. She bullied her own students.

"Are you carrying a knife?"

"No, ma'am."

"Why not?"

"Because, because I am not as well born, m-ma'am," Kitasawa said haltingly.

Amelie paused, leaving a tense silence in the room.

"Well born?" The nun said as she slapped the knife into the palm of her left hand. "Well born. Tell me, did your family tell you to carry this blade?"

"My elder sister, she gave it to me. Before it was my mother's," Hikari replied with icy dignity.

"Let me tell you something," the sister said as she laid the knife down on her desk. Her voice sank low and drew out sentences to volumes. "Your elder sister will not lead you to Heaven. Your mother will not lead you to heaven. Nor will your father. Because the Authority declared 'The only way to Heaven is through me'.

"It will be easier to get a camel through the eye of a needle than the rich to heaven," the nun continued. She walked over to a corner of a room and lifted up a wooden switch. Her speech began to accelerate. "Indeed honor thine parent, even when he is a stinking drunk, even when your own mother is a scented and painted whore.

"Gluttony and lust. We enjoy food though we must scrabble life from dust," she spat, her voice rising. "Fornicating and rutting, because we were Cast. Out. In-to. The. Dust. From dust we came and to dust we return! And in dust we wallow! And to it I say NO!"

Amelie punctuated the last words with forceful whips onto the desk. The habited woman's eyes bulged, veins popped, and mouth sprayed forth her words.

The bell rang, catching the woman at the end of her rant. No one moved. The only noise was Amelie's raspy breaths. The nun's bulging eyes oppressed the class. Hikari stood there holding her sash and wearing her best poker face. Minutes passed. No one moved. They could hear the students file out of the other classrooms.

"Class, assemble," Amelie commanded. "Single file. Horaki, you shall lead."

Hikari retrieved her knife and purse. She carried them with her sash, in her right hand. With her left, she held the front of her kimono closed.

A few stragglers looked in wonder at the procession, led by a marching Sister Amelie who carried a switch and whose iguana daemon curled around her neck like a collar. She was followed by Hikari who wore an open kimono. The rest of her class followed her. They peeked often at the front of the line.

The dining room was nearly full. Light streaked into the room from the high windows. Each ray looked subdued and gray.

"The rest of you, take your places," Amelie ordered. "Horaki, follow me."

Hikari caught the bewildered glances of her classmates. Several were openly frightened. As the nun and Hikari neared the teacher's table, she noticed that the teachers were as confused as most of the students. Ibuki-sensei was absent from the table.

"Stop there and turn around," Amelie ordered when they had reached the front of the teacher's table. Hikari set her possessions onto the table and faced over a hundred students. Each girl stood at attention. 

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," Amelie declared to the assembled students. "Indeed, I know that the flesh is weak. And I shall teach the flesh.

"Rest assured that I shall save your soul," Amelie promised Hikari.

*****

Asuka sat propped again her pillow. She slowly slid over to one side. Ibuki pushed her patient back to vertical. The young nun sat on the side of the bunk with a mostly full bowl of broth and a spoon in the broth.

"I feel awful," Asuka said in a clotted voice. Ibuki descended and put down the bowl. She pulled open the curtain, and Asuka shrank away from the light. Ibuki opened the window and then opened the door for a cross breeze. She ascended the ladder to pull the sheets tighter around the sick girl as a refreshing and cool wind blew through the room.

"But I'm never sick," Asuka protested feebly.

"I think that you caught a local bug," Ibuki responded gently. "By the way, Hikari came back, she left her uniform on her bed. I hope that Sister Amelie goes easy on her."

Asuka nodded, and then exploded with a sneeze that ended with a trumpeting blow into her kerchief. Asuka looked up with watery eyes to see a giant slowly walking past the doorway. Asuka wiped her eyes clear and saw Sister Chay; who was at least six foot six and was built like a bull in face and in body. She wore a massive black habit and carried a six foot long stalk of bamboo. Ibuki exchanged looks with Asuka.

"Help me down," Asuka croaked and rose with a heroic effort.

*****

Hikari's knees nearly buckled when the fifth blow exploded across her back. She bit her lips to keep in the scream of pain. Amelie's white headdress had fallen off from the violence of her strokes and her gray streaked brown bun was in a disarray. The nun breathed heavily.

Hikari looked up through the tears that welled up in her eyes and saw the broad shouldered Sister Chay enter the room. Her eyes widened and she felt the pit of stomach fall out, but she straightened her back once again. She would not turn tail and run. She had already run from the storm.

"Stop," Hikari heard in Deutsch. It was one of the few words she had picked up from her roommate. Racking coughs followed. Sister Chay did not heed the words and the length of the room. Hikari heard a single whimper from a corner of the dining room. A smatter of whispered disbelieve welled up and evaporated.

Sister Chay stopped next to Sister Amelie. Amelie fixed her intense gaze on the larger woman.

"Sister Chay, you will strike her," the head nun ordered.

"But I might break her," Chay responded in her deep voice. She studied the slight girl. "I don't think that the Lord would like that."

"You will strike her, I am your superior," Amelie persisted. "You will do it if you want to go to Heaven."

"But I don't think-"

"Do you want to go to Heaven?"

"But-"

"Do. You. Want. To. Go. To. Heaven?" Amelie seethed out.

Sister Chay sighed and turned to Hikari, who met Chay's look with as much calmness the girl could summon. 

"I'm sorry," the large woman said wearily and lifted the bamboo shaft. Chay's arms seemed larger than Hikari's legs.

"Wait!" Ibuki shouted as she half-dragged Asuka closer. Chay stopped at the top of her swing. The Deutsch girl's energy was flagging quickly. Asuka gave another hacking cough and then addressed Amelie in rapid fire Deutsch. She sounded angry even through her phlegm. It was far too fast for Hikari to follow. Amelie responded in kind. As they spoke, the nun slowly turned red and then purple. Asuka hacked her way between sentences and occassionally spat something moist and sticky into her kercheif.

Chay had long relaxed her teeing off pose and looked relieved.

Minutes later, Amelie had completely changed color and ended up shouting. "Get out! All of you, get out!"

*****

The sun had dipped beneath the horizon, leaving an ink blue sky behind. Hikari still sat on her trunk.

"Dust," she said aloud. She was so deep in thought that she did not hear Ibuki enter the room.

"Dust particles?" Ibuki said. Ibuki dressed as an ordinary Nipponese woman. Hikari had only seen her teacher in a white headdress and black dress before, but now the image seemed strange to her.

"Actually it was something that Sister Amelie had said," Hikari explained. "I wonder why she was so hung up on dust.

"From dust we came, and dust we return. She said that."

"That dust," Ibuki said. She considered her next words carefully before speaking. "I've heard from my fellow sisters, that is if I'm not expelled from my order, that Amelie grew up in the middle of a war between Deutsch and France.

"Do you remember the story of Adam and Eve?"

Hikari nodded. She had heard it everyday for weeks on end.

"In a way, that passage is very important. It speaks of the difficulty in life and those difficulties do define a lot of things, but I think that Sister Amelie forgot about the good things in life."

"You don't sound angry at her," Hikari said.

"I am upset, but there's nothing I can do about it," Ibuki replied with a sigh and smoothed out the front of her kimono.

"Sorry to bring it up.

"It's OK."

Ibuki rose and began to fiddle with something in the bookshelf. Hikari tried to look around her, but Ibuki's narrow back blocked her view.

"Ibuki-sensei, what did Asuka say to Sister Ameilie?" Hikari asked.

"I think that Asuka should tell you, herself," Ibuki said. "There we go."

Ibuki backed away from the bookshelf. sat down in one of the chairs. One of the doors in bookshelf now sat open and revealed a smooth black cylinder about the twice size of a cup and a horn next to it. From the horn came the clear sound of an orchestra. A woman joined the humming violins and singing wind instruments.

"I'm not sure which one it is, but I think it's Italian. It's secular," Ibuki said as she sank deeper into her chair.

The rich noise swept away Hikari's thoughts. She immersed in its energy and the music swept away the tension of the past two days. Hikari was certain that the contralto was in love.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. Gendou II

Outcasts  
  


9.0 Gendou II  
  


Sister Akagi Ritsuko was glad to be finished with the black habit and headdress. As a member of the Order of Curie, she still had to dress conservatively. She wore a modest black kimono with a narrow white collar and charcoal sash. Her dark hair was cut to shoulder length. Wearing the habit and headdress was not safe in Nippon. Some memories ran long, especially in near farms where many grandfathers had died. Some believed that the coming of the Church had been an affront with the Son of Heaven, then in Kyoto, and had sparked the civil war.

This was her first time in the stone corridors beneath the old fortress. She walked under a harsh pool of anabaric light. Her shadow lay as a dark band to her left flank by a pair of smoke colored sisters. Another pool of light lay ahead and another lay behind her. The wiring hung exposed along the walls and the softly buzzing bulb was hooded with sheet metal. The air was musty. Her footsteps hung in the still and quiet air. Her gray cat daemon gingerly walked along side of her. He wrinkled his nose at the dust coated floor.

She had wandered the empty hallways for a time before she heard a pair of familiar echoing voices. One was the intense and husky. It did not speak so much as state and declare ironclad phrases. The other was dignified and reminded Ritsuko of a well worn book. The two men paused in the hallway for her under the harsh light. Ikari Gendou was a stood tall and square. His cobra daemon wrapped around his upper body. It flicked its tongue in the air. Fuyutski resembled a professor with his iron and silver hair and refined mien.

"Father Ikari, Father Fuyutski," Ritsuko greeting them with an incline of her head.

"Sister Akagi," Fuyutski replied. Gendou merely nodded.

The men continued their walk and Ritsuko matched them stride for stride.

"Were you well recieved in Manila?" Fuyutski asked. 

"Yes," Ritsuko replied. "My refinement for rating the efficiency of numerical computation on Babbage Engines was not controversial or particularly interesting."

"Even in experimental theology there are dogmas and politics we must contend with," Fuyutski said.

"More like skirt around," Ritsuko said. "I have checked with the Northern Shipyard. The Quince and the Cormorant are on schedule and within budget. The quality of the laborers have turned out better than expected. The training program implemented by Brother Makoto was quite successful."

"Good," Gendou said.

Quiet white wings flapped past them in the corridor. An owl daemon flew past them and landed on a distant unused iron sconce. The air grew fresher and Ritsuko looked overhead to see a metal duct hung into the ancient ceiling. The ventilation gave the rushing noise that confined wind makes.

A pair of green uniformed and jack-booted soldiers waited at the end of the corridor. They lowered their bayonet mounted rifles for a moment before raising them to their shoulders. The young men and their canine daemons stood at attention. They snapped a stiff salute. Gendou acknowledged them with the barest nod, and the soldiers lowered their hands. Gendou and Fuyutski approached one of the walls and claimed heavy and drab wool cloaks from the pegs. Sister Akagi followed suit. The soldiers heaved the doors open. Chilled mist poured through the open doorway. 

Fuyutski's owl daemon flew into the cavernous chamber and perched on the railing of a raised platform of riveted steel. Ikari Gendou paused for a moment to wipe the fog from his glasses. Five house sized machines dominated the room. The rest of the room was infested with pipes and wiring. Mist hissed intermittently from the pipes, and the hum of anabaric power vibrated the air.

One large device sat in front of the platform. The other four were placed two to each side of the space between the first machine and the platform. Each machine was mass of struts, riveted steel, and a convoluted mass of piping. At the center of each machine was a great convex lens made of an alien mating of steel and glass. Trumpet shaped pipes projected out from each machine.

They ascended to two steps to the platform with clanging steps. The structure was rectangular on three sides and curved where it faced the assembled machines. A waist high railing was mounted on three sides. There was enough room for twenty more to stand comfortably.

The anabaric hum became a purr. A mechanical whirling sound drew Ritsuko's attention to above the platform. Several black boxes with smaller glass-steel lenses shifted on articulate arms to aim at the three. An array of brass trumpets also shifted. Flood lights snapped on, causing Ritsuko to wince. Fuyutski gently cleared his throat and Ritsuko turned her attention back to the lenses.

A fingertip of light appeared at the center of each lens and expanded like liquid vortices running in reverse, up a drain.

The images were grainy and gray. The first machine showed a powerfully built man sitting at a desk. His advanced age was evident in his wrinkles, discolored patches of skin, and white hair. He wore a slotted visor over his eyes. A large raven daemon perched behind him on his chair. The other four images wereof men shrouded in darkness and shadow. From their profiles, Ritsuko saw that they were foreigners.

"Your excellency," Gendou said with an incline of his head. Fuyutski and Akagi bent their waists to the virtual assembly.

"The time is nearing," the visored man intoned in his granite baritone, which projected with a metallic tone into the chamber. "How is the schedule?"

"The vehicles for the expedition are on schedule," Gendou replied confidently. "The supplies are being assembled and the crew has been prepared. Lord Horaki has consented for us to use his name for the expedition. It is all going to plan, Pope Lorenz."

"Care must be taken not to be noticed," a nasal voice interjected from Father Ikari's left. "If the Court notices us, it could cause complications."

"Caution has been exercised," Father Ikari answered.

"A ship yard. A pratical man heading a quixotic mission. A castle next to a river producing hundreds of kilowatts of anabaric power, how have you hidden this?" a rough voice demanded from the right.

"Nippon is a large place," the Ikari replied. "Lord Horaki is known for his interest in experimental theology, especially after his wife's death."

"Money, time, man hours all poured into an insignificant diocese," a deep voice said from the far right. "We know where it is and what it is. We should secure it."

"We know your views," the visored man replied to the last speaker. "We must take into account Asrael's presence. He too is interested in Northern Eurasia. He is not just another disgruntled man. Only the Authoriy fully knows his role."

The deep voice spoke again. "One of our agents is headed to Tokyo from Manila. He will assist you."

"We will carefully review your request for more funds," the nasal voice said.

"Your role is critical, Father Ikari," the visored man warned. "Do not fail us."

"Failure is not an option," a fifth voice warned. "The Authority watches us and we shall watch you."

"Thank you for your presence," the nasal voice said.

The five lenses switched to the black lines of the sephiroth on a newspaper shade background.

"So that is the committee," Sister Akagi said finally.

"Yes, and that was our third meeting," Fuyutski responded. "So, do we call his excellency Pope Lorenz III, Lorenz II, or Anti-Pope Lorenz II?"

"There is only one," Ikari answered.

"I find that hard to believe that after 115 years," Fuyutski said. "Also, wasn't Lorenz I's daemon a canine? The Anti Pope's was a drake."

"Nevertheless Fuyutski, there remains one Lorenz Kiel, there has only been one Kiel," Ikari Gendou stated.  
  


9.75 Misato's Memories  
  


The weather in and around Edo had been unusually wet, but also unusually warm for that time year. A pair of heat spells had managed to fool several insects into crawling from their winter shelters.

While listening to the false summer sounds, Katsuragi Misato sat at the wooden dresser with her back to the dim room. A gaslight burned steadily nearby. Her reflection looked back at her and saw a nearly thirty-year old woman. Tonight, she felt every year distinctly and heavily. She looked at the faded photogram of the woman and two children. She took a sip of green tea and placed the cup back on its coaster. She took a puff from her cigarette holder and placed the scented tobacco back on its ash tray. Beside the photogram were her make-up, perfumes, and small leatherbound volume. The pages were yellow with age.

"Old memories," she said to herself.

She looked again at the open letter. It had been folded and creased in exact thirds; the folds ran length wise. The handwriting was impeccable. The characters were soldiered from top to bottom and neatly furrowed from right to left. Sakura had had an unusual tightness around her eyes when she handed Misato the envelope. The young woman had bowed stiffly afterwards. It bore the dark red Church seal. In the lighting, the melted wax resembled a lump of congealed blood.   
  


To Katsuragi Misato,

It has been a while. I now serve the Nipponese Diocese as a member of the Order of Curie, which specializes in experimental theology. We should meet to have a drink sometime.

This is not an entirely social message. I am also writing to you to ask if you would be willing to share some knowledge concerning your late honored father's expeditions to Antartica and the Yucatan Peninsula in Mextique. We believe that his observations may be invaluable to our research into elementary particles.

Also, I believe that my superiors would be interested in employing you and your associates. If you would consent to meet with me in the near future, please write me back at your earliest convenience.  
  


Very truly yours,  
  


Sister Akagi Ritsuko  
  


The seminary. Misato grimaced at that memory; she did not remember the Mother Superior fondly. It had been an awkward time and place for the fifteen year old. The good times had been spent with a brilliant, but withdrawn girl, Akagi Ritsuko. They had rolled their first cigarettes and stolen sips of sake together during the six short months there. Actually, it had been Misato who had been the first of the two who smoked and drank.

Ritsuko had written intermitently over the years. Misato would not have minded seeing her schoolmate again, but she did not know what to make of the request about her father's so-called work. The subject had come up once before, when they first met.. Honored was another word she did not use in the same sentence. She tapped the refolded letter against her lower lip for a few seconds while listening to the cricket chirps outside. Her idle fingers picked up the cigarette for another puff. She put down the smoking tobacco and pulled out her ink, brush, and paper to compose a suitable response.


	10. In the Woods

Outcasts  
  


10. In the Woods  
  


Shinji felt gentle hands shake him awake. He opened his bleary eyes and saw Rei outlined by thin rays of moonlight that snuck through the cracks in the boxcar wall. The train had stopped. Shinji stretched widely for a moment and then clambered up the crates

He knelt and let Rei sit on his shoulders. With a grunt, he lifted her. She opened a hatch overhead; it opened with a thump. A brief breeze blew into the stuffy boxcar. Rei slung her bag onto the roof. Her weight lifted off of his shoulders as she climbed up. Rei lowered a length of rough burlap to him, which Shinji took in his hands and pulled himself up. He could hear Rei straining to support his weight. He climbed high enough to get a handhold. From there, his sister pulled him up far enough to get an arm onto the roof. From there, he heaved his weight into the moonlight and cool air.

The night air reeked of coal spirits. The moon was low in the western sky; sinking behind the hills. A sleeping town sat among the hills. The train stretched several cars south and at least a dozen cars before ending at the engine, which lay north. Below them lay a black mirror of a lake. A pump drank noisily from water.

Shinji carefully closed the hatch. They looked around. Several roughly dressed laborers hauled sacks into a boxcar, several cars away. The men moved further away. Rei crawled to the side of the boxcar. She tossed her bag to the ground and then hung off the side. Shinji followed her to the edge and saw her drop and land with a dull crunch. Shinji dropped a moment afterwards. He landed a little off balance and fell. Pain shot up his behind as a sharp stone bit into his flesh. Shinji had skinned his right palm. He licked and sucked the wound before spitting out blood and dirt. Rei offer him a hand. She was luminous and ghostly in the moonlight. Her eyes took on a lively gleam in the twilight, though her expression did not change. He took her hand. They checked around once again; the fall had not attracted any attention from the now distant workers.

Rei walked into the hip tall grass. Shinji matched her purposeful strides. Her sharps eyes led them around thistles and numerous holes. A graceful web hung neatly suspended between stalks of grass. They headed for the far side of the lake across the grass. The water met moonlit woods there. Away from the pumps, the frogs gulped rhythmically, crickets chirped, and other insects hummed. A bird sang briefly in the distance. The train wailed forlornly as it took off.

Shinji and Rei reached the woods before the sun rose. Walking had kept them warm, though dew soaked their patched trousers. Shinji surveyed the half bare trees. The undergrowth was still abundant, though the dim light made it difficult to see if there was much green left. He walked into the sanctuary of the trees.

Through his second sight, the life patterns of the plants emerged. Flowers stretched and strained upward and outward to show off the faded glory of their petals. They lived at their extremities. Modest wild yams kept more of their pulses of life-force closer to the ground. The pattern of ivy mostly ran along its thin core and contrasted with the steady rings that suffused the trunk of an oak tree.

The familiar life structure of day lilies leapt out to him even before he recognized the distinct shape and knee high stems. The flowers were slightly withered. He plucked several and shook the roots free of sod. He took one and handed the rest to Rei. She pulled a smaller bag from the burlap sack that she carried over her shoulder and put all but one of the lilies into it. Shinji cleared off the rest of the soil from the roots and bit off the nodules and chewed on them. The off season flavor was a bit bitter, but his empty stomach did not complain. He sat against a tree stump to finish his snack. Shinji drew out his knife and stripped the outside of the shoot. Rei had done the same. As she neared the final inches, she teased an errant hair from her mouth as she ate. She pulled back her hair with both hands and balanced the remaining stalk and wilted orange flower between her lips like an abnormal cigar. Shinji snickered at the sight and held his flower the same way as he tied her hair back with a piece of twine he had found in his pocket.

"Do you want me to cut it?" Shinji asked around his lily.

"No," she replied. "Winter is coming."

"That's true."

They chewed for a while and took off the edge of their hunger. The leaves and petals left an herbal tang on Shinji's tongue.

"The sun will be up soon," Rei said.

Shinji rose with an effort and then helped Rei up. Shinji took the larger bag and Rei lifted the bag of lilies. They would forage at the pond in the early morning. At dawn, the fish would feed. They also needed some light to find the telltale signs of shellfish and stalk the crayfish in their clouds of algae. Later in the day, the trees would provide shade for Rei as they looked for plants and mushrooms under the beeches, maples, and oaks. Shinji was wary of the sun even though it was well into autumn. Rei had been severely burned once years before. He vividly remembered the peeling skin and whimpers of pain. If they found enough to eat for that day, they would move onto the groves of pine deeper in the woods. With a schedule set in his mind, Shinji led them to the lake.

*****

Though they knew of no one who had ever come so close to the pines, Shinji and Rei still chose an area far from any path to store their forage. It was well hidden by a densely grown trees and the surrounding brush. Only the most frantic squirrels ventured near to their campsite. From experience they also knew that few other animals lived nearby.

Shinji placed a bowl of leather into a foot deep pit and put the bag of crayfish onto to the leather. He fished a palm size packet of precious sea salt from within his clothes and sprinkled it into the bag. Rei emptied the a flask of lake water into the bag. It leaked through the bag, but it still immersed the mess of mudbugs. Shinji secured the mouth of the bag with twine and left the mudbugs to spit out their mud. 

Another small sack held some mussels and three whiskered black fish hung from a branch. Each measured about a half a foot long. One had managed to nip Shinji's thumb as he pulled the hook out of its mouth. A bag lay full of green forage and yams. A fourth small bag held some mushrooms. They had snacked on mushrooms as they rooted through the fallen leaves. They missed the earthy flavor in the city.

The mushrooms brought back good memories for Shinji. The memories were faded, but he remembered their mother showing them the difference between good and bad caps and shelf shaped fungi. 

"Wasps," Rei said, interrupting Shinji from his reverie. She pointed at an apple-sized paper nest hanging from a branch. A bright blue wasp landed on the nest and crawled in. "They have come closer to the pines."

"They've spread quickly," Shinji replied.

Shinji sat dappled by the warm sunlight. Rei sat against him for warmth. Shinji stomach was satisfied; he was sure that Rei was satiated too. Their trousers were wet, even though they had rolled them up. Their wooden sandals sat next to their feet. They sat patiently and sedately, glad for a rest. A few insects buzzed about.

"Do you think that they will chant tonight?" Shinji asked.

"No, the season already turned," Rei answered.

"I'd forgotten when they did it. Why do they do it?"

"They tell stories. They remember. Wait," Rei said and then sat up to listen intently on something in the distance. After a moment, the rustling became a little closer and louder. Shinji pulled on his sandals. Rei did the same. Rei tracked the sound, and Shinji followed. Along the way, Rei picked up a pair of sticks.

A space separated the pines and their deciduous neighbors. The old pines held up a canopy thick with needles and smothered the bright afternoon sun. It was cold among the dense shadows. Beside the dragging rustle, it was quiet. No other life stirred, neither bird nor beast. Not even an insect could be heard.

The source of the noise quickly became apparent. At first it seemed that a mass of fallen needles that had been given life and dragged itself along the ground. At second glance, six stocky legs could be discerned. The stumps of two legs hung off a bulbous body that was the size of a fat sow. The spider's spiky brown fur blended in with the pine needles. It had begun to climb the base of a gnarled tree. A man slept peacefully on a thick lower branch. Rei click her tongue and the tapped the sticks together as loudly as she could.

The spider hesitated Though he had seen such spiders before, Shinji still felt a chill run down his spine as it turned to face them. The front of the spider was smooth and chitinous. The lines and ridges of the chitin clearly drew an impish face complete with pointed ears, nose, eyes, and mouth. Set in the folds of its faux eyes were two black orbs that gleamed with cunning. Six eyes surrounded the imp face. Its black mandibles were as long as daggers and just as sharp. Shinji had witnessed a spider take down a deer with those formidable weapons. The powerful buck was full grown and wore a full spread of antlers, but had been dragged down in a heartbeat.

Right now, the mandibles clicked an irritable response to Rei's message.

"Get the fish," Rei said. She stomped forward a step and clicked her tongue against her bottom tongue urgently. Shinji ran back and pulled the fish from the branch. Her urgency followed him. He hopped over the pit and ran to where Rei was stomping and clicking at the goblin spider. The spider hissed loudly at her and stood only two steps away. It waved two front legs in the air menacingly.

Rei's clicking changed to a simple repeating pattern. The clicking became a clear word to Shinji. It said. "Food. Food. Food."

Shinji looked around frantically and saw the black hole that was its home. He swung the fish where the spider could see it and hopefully smell it. The spider crawled toward him and waved its forelegs in anticipation as it neared. Shinji swung the fish back and forth and lofted it in a smooth arc over the spider. The weight had barely hit the ground before the spider darted forth and claimed the food. In an instant, it bolted down into its hole and dragged the door haphazardly into place. The door shifted once before.

The man had awaken. His red faced monkey daemon cautiously leaned over a branched and looked at the twins. The man was handsome with a strong jaw and casual strength that he used to climb to the ground. He took off his conical straw hat and looked up at Shinji and Rei. His unshaven face bore an ironic smile. He bowed low enough to swing his ponytail down past his shoulder. His daemon jumped onto his back and bowed as well. The macaque pulled herself up to his shoulder as he straightened.

"I am Ryoji Kaji," he said. "And I am in your debt."

*****

Rei and Shinji sat at the edge of the water near the railway. Night had fallen. They sheltered in the reeds near the concrete culvert where the pipe stuck into the lake. They carried two small bags of mushrooms and the third sack held the rest of their belongings. Evening had settled. A flew fireflies floated among the reeds blinking gently.

"It's so peaceful," Shinji said.

"Yes," Rei responded. They fell silent for a spell.

"I wish we had not met that Kaji," Shinji said.

"Yes," Rei agreed.

"He acted so friendly that it was strange. Definitely strange. I almost prefer the way that girl reacted, at least we expected that."

"He knew about us."

"You think so?"

"Yes."

After a long pause, Rei spoke again. "The goblin spiders talk of a time when winter was longer and the pines stretched far and wide. 

"When the flying death was far and few in between. 

"When men were few.

"When no spider ate another, because there was land enough.

"There was game enough."

"Is that all they chant about?" Shinji asked. Though he had asked before, he wanted to hear Rei's voice. Tonight, he wanted to hear it more than usual.

"No, there is one left who chants of a woman," Rei responded. "She warmed him as an egg. Raised him from a hatchling and fed him with her own hands.. She gave him a shiny piece of metal, but she went away many seasons ago. He longs for her. His time grows short.

"I did not hear that one last year. They are fewer and fewer of them.."

"Why do you think that wasps were fewer back then?" Shinji asked.

"Winter was longer. Wasps, like bees, do not like the cold," Rei answered as she usually did. This time she added to her usual answer. "Pitch. The wasps build their nests in beech branches, which has no pitch.

"The beech are newcomers."

Shinji fell silent and contemplated a world with no people. A world full of winter, blanketed with snow. A wolf howled on the imaginary wind under a vast full moon. The clicking of the goblin spiders filled the night. Shinji imagined himself and Rei hidden in a cave somewhere, alone and safe; they would be dressed like the photograms Eskimo they had once seen. But his mind wandered back to their unexpected acquaintance.

The fellow had been agreeable and even likeable. In fact, Ryogi Kaji was too likeable. That evening he had managed to get invited to dinner and the next Shinji knew; they were all cooking supper together in the clearing near the pines. Kaji had contributed the use of some utensils, a generous amount of brown rice, soy sauce, and dried chilis. The man was also an able cook.

The twins had excused themselves to hunt for pine mushrooms, an elusive delicacy to most searchers. Shinji had the advantage of his second sight though. The goblin spiders had also rendered the land virgin to mushroom hunters. Shinji had contemplated just running and leaving behind their forage, but Rei did not feel any danger from the man. He trusted his sister's instinct and insight.

The stranger asked some questions, but the twins gave few answers. They did not even tell him their names. The man named Kaji seemed to take that in stride.

Shinji did not enjoy sucking the disc of fat from the mudbloods' heads as much as he usually did.

Kaji rolled himself an after dinner cigarette and pulled his lute out of his sack. He played skillfully as he smoked. After a half of hour digesting, he gathered his belongings and left to catch a train north. His red-faced macaque daemon clung to his bag.

"Nice to meet you," Kaji said casually over his shoulder as he left.

Shinji was upset. It had been ill luck to meet a person where they last expected one. It might have felt different if Misato or Sakura had been the one to see their sanctuary, but it had been a stranger. A brief thought crossed his mind that they should have left him and his daemon to the spider.

It was Kaji's smile that bothered him the most. He knew what to expect when he saw raw anger, fear, or disgust. He did not know what lay behind that smile. All Rei could tell was that he held no overt threat.

The weather promised to hold for another day or two, and there forage was enough. However, the woods had lost the feeling of safety. It had been their private realm, and it was gone. Rei agreed that they should return to near Edo. Shinji was glad to hear the whistle of the night train as it approached.  
  
  
  
  
References:

"Swamp Cookin' with the River People" by Dana Holyfield

"AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium Appendix: Kara-tur" by TSR staff


	11. Clasping a Cross

Outcasts  
  


11. Clasping a Cross  
  


The snow had ridden to Nippon on a freak Siberian bluster. The air was so dry that its scent was reminiscent of the fine ash that falls from the end of burnt incense. Small snowflakes drifted down from a whitewashed sky. Shinji blew out a plume of mist. He did not mind the snow, cold, or biting wind; they kept people indoors. And he was no stranger to the cold.

Shinji felt uncomfortable, dressed in his nearly new clothing. The bulky padded coat and kimono did not allow for the freedom of movement his daily-wear afforded. Nevertheless, the clothes were warm. His hair had been washed and neatly combed. 

Rei looked strange to him. Her hair was bound by a blue silk ribbon. Under her brown coat, she wore a white kimono printed with blocks of perpendicular blue lines and a broad blue sash.

They walked to the gate of a property near a covered well. A faded wooden shingle on the fence post read "Ichimonji". The fence and gate were patched with dryrot. Shinji reached his hand through a broken board in the gate and slid off the weathered wooden bar. Carefully, Shinji replaced the bar after they had passed. The small yard and house were similarly ramshackle. Wilted tall grass sat under a layer of scattered leaves and an inch of fresh snow. The rice paper panels on the house were spotted with dirt, and many of the panels were torn. The wooden steps and frame showed dryrot as well.

Shinji walked up to the front door and rapped on the frame. Rei followed close behind. There was no answer.  
"Maybe she isn't awake," Shinji said aloud.

Wordlessly, Rei walked past him to slide the door open. The door stuttered and jammed. Shini added his hands, and they shoved it open. The foyer floor was coated with dust. A lone pair of wooden sandals, which sat on the floor, were also finely coated with dust.

Shinji opened foyer door and called in. "Sorry to intrude."

Both of them recoiled from the stench in the air. Rank human sweat and oil mixed with the tang of stale urine and the odor of mildew. Shinji reluctantly closed the outside door to shut out the chill wind. Shinji pulled off his coat and left it on the foyer floor. He stepped out of his sandals. He pulled a small package from his coat. Rei looked at him for a moment and took off her coat and sandals. Rei stepped into the gloomy room and door slid close behind him.

"Hello?" he called out into the dark room. The interior of the house was cold. Blades of musty straw stuck up from the worn floor mats. Shinji took a cautious step forward and saw a large dark oval of an insect scuttle away. A single table sat in the middle of the bare room. He headed for Granny Ichimonji's bedroom, where the stench grew stronger. He pulled out his kerchief and inhaled the clean scent of lye. He felt Rei's comforting presence near him.

A half closed door led to a darkened room. Granny Ichimonji lay shriveled and small in the middle of the room. Shinji padded quietly to her. Her eyes were closed. Her small dog daemon lay on the top of her cover. Its fur was mangy and most of fur had fallen from his arced tailed.

"Granny?" he asked quietly as he neared. 

Across the room, Rei lit a candle stub that lay on a closed chest. Closer, he could smell feces and urine from her bed. Her skin was encrusted with filth. The corners of her eyes were caked with yellow wax. Her hair glistened with grease. Her wrinkles were bumpy from tick bites. The tip of her nose and ears were a fierce purplish-red. A nearly empty urn of water and a dipper sat next to her futon.

Her clouded eyes flicked open; Shinji started and jumped back.

"Granny?" the old woman asked in a small hoarse voice. "Is that anyway to address your mother?"

"No, sorry. It was a joke, Mother, " Shinji replied in cheerful tone. He tried not shy away from the bedridden woman's stinking breath. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm well Kazuya," Ichimonji answered and coughed. "I'm well. How is Seki?"  
"I am also well," Rei replied as she knelt down next to Shinji.

"Has my Kazuya made you happy?"

"Yes," Rei replied.

"Good, that's good," the old woman said before hacking on phlegm. "You're a good boy, Kazuya." 

"We've brought you some mushrooms," Shinji said, holding up the small bag. "Seki, a blanket, please."

Rei searched the room.

His eyes scanned the woman and her daemon. Her daemon looked up with clouded eyes and whined briefly. Her aura flickered from dark to dim. Where a normal person's aura was a skein of bright vitality, spots and bands of her aura had been worn and decayed away. He understood that she was dying.

"Let me get you a drink of water," Shinji murmured and put the bag down.

"Kazuya, I want you to have this," the old woman said. With an effort that made her tremble and break out in sweat, she lifted and offered her closed hand with blue fingertips facing down.

"What is it?" Shinji asked as he cupped a hand underneath her hand. 

The old woman opened her hand and dropped a small piece of metal into his waiting palm. The object was attached to a fine chain that felt soft and pliable. Her arm dropped to her side. Shinji looked down briefly and saw that it a small worn cross lay in his hand. When he looked up, Granny Ichimonji had drawn her last breath. The dim light within her had gone. Her daemon disappeared in a blink of the eye.

*****  
The daemon evaporated into a cloud of golden motes before Rei's eyes. The cloud disappeared as if blown by an intangible wind. Next to the fetid futon, Shinji knelt dumbly looking at the woman. Rei rose and crossed the room. She threw open the doors and let in the wintry air. The breath of clean air reminded her of the stench within.

She approached her kneeling brother.

"She's gone," she told him.

"Yes, she is," he replied.  
Shinji lifted the cover. The body let out a foul stench. Rei backed up gagging. Shinji staggered outside and retched the contents of his stomach out onto the corner of the house. After several deep breaths outside, they were able to approach the body with kerchiefs tied bound around their faces. They armed themselves with a shard of soap, a bucket of well water, and almost clean cloths they found in the house. They transferred the body from the soiled bedding onto a pair of threadbare kimonos.

Shinji's brow was furrowed as he peeled the filthly clothing from the woman's body.

As they wiped, the water blackened. Rei poured out the contents onto the snow and walked to the well. The snow had fallen steadily and had softly blanketed the streets and houses in pure white. She pulled the kerchief from her mouth, let out an explosive breath, and gratefully gulped in clean air. Rei scrubbed the soiled bucket with snow. She uncapped the well, pulled up fresh water, and refilled the bucket.

The snowfall and wind had stopped. An obvious trail in the snow led from Ichimonji's house to the well and back. It could not be helped.

When she returned to Shinji's side, Rei saw him scrubbing the woman's skin with snow. His hands were red and raw. A tear ran down his right cheek. Silently, he took the bucket from her and continued scrubbing at the gaunt and pallid body. Rei replaced the kerchief around her face and helped him.

"Why are you crying?" she asked him in a neutral tone.

He shook his head and continued the cleaning. Rei left him again to retrieve their coats. Shinji was shivering by the time she returned wearing her own padded garment and held his coat in her hands.

"Rest," Rei said to him. Shinji dully nodded and pulled on his coat. He sat on the rickety porch and rocked back and forth. The boards squeaked beneath him. He stuck his hands under his arms and tried to warm himself.

Through the rag, Rei felt the loose skin, flaccid bluish flesh, and exposed bones. Every tick bite and raw bedsore was clear to her as she wiped away the grease and dirt. Those were the hands that had served them tea and given them sweets. Those hands were now still. That was the mouth that taught them songs and spoke kind words to them. That mouth was now closed. Those were the half deaf ears that had listened to Rei recite poems. Poems that Rei had learned long ago and nearly forgotten. Those ears were now wholly deaf. The still expression on the old woman's face was calm.

She ran the rag over the bulge in the woman's right femur, where it had fractured one spring night as Ichimonji fetched water. That night, they had met and helped the blind woman. The old woman had been in such pain that she mewed like an animal. After they brought her into her house, the woman began speaking. Kazuya, she had called him. Kazuya, my son, they said that you had gone away. They said that you had died when the coughing sickness swept through here. Where did you go? the old woman had asked plaintively. It was something I said, wasn't it? Seki, I'm sorry. Wife and mother-in-law are family and should get along. Seki, your voice has grown gentle.

Rei remembered that they had visited her each day. Shinji had set the brittle bone and helped nurse her to health. Misato had helped; food was never abundant, but Misato made sure that they never became too hungry. The bone healed slowly, until one day when Shinji responded to Ichimonji by calling her "Mother". That lie sped the woman's recovery. Sometimes you must lie to yourself to survive, Misato had told them.

Shinji had asked Rei to respond to the name "Seki". He had asked if she wanted to recite poetry. Rei did so willingly. Now the woman was gone and she felt tired. Rei was puzzled by her fatigue; she had performed more demanding tasks in the past. Perhaps it was the cold. She blew mist from her mouth.

Shinji knelt on the other side of the body, and they finished cleaning the body. Its joints were starting to become stiff. Shinji began drying the body.

Rei searched through the well worn chests on the floor and found a fine silk kimono stashed away in paper. It smelled faintly of cedar and lavender. She carefully shook it free of the lavender scented cedar chips. Snow colored silk and cotton under-robes were folded within the colorful outer kimono. A long floral printed sash fell free. She brought the clothing over to where Shinji knelt.

Rags lay strewn about. Shinji walked into the interior of the room. Rei could hear some dull thumps inside. She turned around and saw him awkwardly hauling a table out. A brush fell off of the tilting table.

"Do you need help?" she asked him.

"No, I'm fine," he grunted back.

Rei turned back to the kimono and under-robes. Granny Ichimonji had shrunk and the clothes were loose. It also felt strange, putting a kimono on a reclining body. After several minutes, Rei managed to dress the old woman. She tied a neat and conservative bow around Ichimonji's back by turning the body on its side. Shinji handed her a horse hair brush, and Rei parted the gray hair.

Shinji helped her hauled a tick ridden straw mat off of the floor and wiped the floor underneath. They moved the body onto a clean sheet, which lay on the clean square of bare floor. Rei composed the old woman on her back with her arms folded over her stomach. Shinji looked at his hands and then lay them on Rei's shoulders. He shook with fatigue. She could see that him mind was full of many shades of thought, but they were all muted in intensity. A brief pulse of hot prickling force spread from his palms and ran over her body.

"Ticks," he explained and then drew in a shuddering breath. "Had to chase them off."

"When will we head back?" Rei asked.

"One more thing," Shinji said and walked into the gloom once more. He sat back down at the table with a double armful. He set down the small cross, bag of mushrooms, a candle stub, matches, and a battered flat black box. Shinji sat with his back to the wind to shield the table.

"Are you cold?" he asked her.

"Not really," Rei replied as she sat against him. She felt that this was somehow important, as was the cleaning. She could not understand why they had cleaned the woman's body, but felt less tired after they had finished the task.

"Are you hungry?" he asked her.

"Not really."

The cleaning had taken away her appetite, though she had not eaten yet that day. 

She could see that Shinji was struggling to keep his red hands from trembling as he struck the matches. He reached over and took a palm full of snow and warmed it by candle flame. Rei recognized the black box as a writing set. The widow had been proud that her husband was a government scribe, and proud that she had managed to learned several kanji herself. Granny Ichimonji had showed them the kit in the past when talking to Shinji about his "father". The slab of ink was old, but still managed to create a dark and rich black color. The brushes were still ready to write. Shinji sorted through the slabs of wood and scraps of yellowed paper until he found a shingle with only a little discoloring. He began the pictogram for "Ichimonji". With each stroke and dab, his writing became more confident.

"What year is it?" he asked her quietly.

"Showa 60," Rei answered. She closed her eyes, curled up, and nestled against him with her cheek on his shoulder.

He blew on it to dry the words. In simple characters, it read "Ichimonji passed away first snow Showa 60".

"It doesn't seem like enough, but it's all we can do," he said. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired," Rei said in a small voice.

"Sometimes, I feel tired when I'm sad," Shinji said and then tried to breath warmth back into his hands.

"Then I am probably sad," Rei replied and sat up. She took his cold hands into her own and tried to warm them. The tips were blue. He gently drew them back and push them into his coat. She saw the cross on the table. The cross that the old woman had given him. "Lean your head forward."

The metal was icy. She rubbed the cross and fine chain in her hands. After it had warmed, she stood behind her brother and slipped the chain around Shinji's thin neck and fumbled the clasp close. She slipped the cross beneath his coat and folded her arms around him and settled her weight onto his shoulders.

"Yes, I think that I am also sad," Rei said into his ear.  
  



	12. A Quiet Meal

Outcasts

  
  


12. A Quiet Meal

"Eat well," Misato announced exuberantly.

"Eat well," Shinji said laconically.

"Eat well," Rei murmured in her usual deadpan voice.

Shinji plucked the eye from the broiled fish, popped it into his mouth, and then chewed thoughtfully. He shoveled down half a mouthful of steaming rice with his chopsticks. He blew it cool as it sat between his teeth. He usually enjoyed the fatty fish head. Though tonight, the food tasted flat. He tried the a pine mushroom. The pine forest and cinnamon laced fragrance smelled good, but it did not taste particularly good either. He reflexively shoveled more rice. The broth with tofu was well seasoned and rich, but it too failed to inspire his appetite.

Rei sat to his right. She efficiently packed away a bowl of rice and started on her second.

Misato slurped her broth and attacked her fish with relish. The soup seemed to sublimate, and the cut of fish was quickly stripped of its flesh. Misato devoured her share of the mushrooms. Misato paused in her eating to pile vinegar soaked daikon slivers onto Shinji's nearly intact fish.

"Thank you," he said absent mindedly.

"Is something wrong with the food?" Misato asked as she took a refilled rice bowl from Rei. 

"No, the food is fine," Shinji responded.

"You know, you're chopsticks don't do much good glued to your lips."

"Mmm, I know," he mumbled.

He looked around the room. The same gaslights burned around the room. The plain decor was the same. The untouchable bureau sat piled with papers and cosmetics like any other day. Pen-Pen sat on folded bedding playing with a brightly colored top. Misato's trunks and chests lined the room. Even the angles and depths of the shadows were familiar, but Shinji felt as if they should have been different somehow. The feeling grated on him.

"Shinji?" Misato called. "Shinjiii."  
"Yes?" he said.

"You know it's rude not to pay attention when someone is trying to tease you."

"Oh, sorry."

"Well, forgot about it."

"Sorry, I've had things on my mind."

"Like what?"

"Like Granny Ichimonji dying today."  
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was about to ask you how your visit went," Misato said sympathetically. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

Shinji did not want to answer. The words felt heavy and full of visions. Visions of walking through the door again and seeing the small still figure once again.

"Yes," Rei answered. Rei turned to Shinji and looked at him a moment. Shinji understood the question. After a few seconds, Shinji felt the weight of her steady gaze. He nodded.

"We found her nearly dead. She lay in filth," Rei continued. "She spoke to us, gave Shinji her pendant, and then passed away.

"We cleansed her body with water and snow and composed it for death. Shinji made a plaque and hung it outside of the gate. We left her house and returned here. Shinji did not cry.  
"That would explained why you washed when you came back. The scent clung to you," Misato said solemnly. "Well, I'm proud of both of you."  
"What do you mean by that?" Shinji asked.

"You kept Old Woman Ichimonji company. You stayed and performed a difficult task when you could have just walked away.

"And you did not cry. How could she be happy if you did?"

"Do you really believe that? That people go somewhere else when they die?" Shinji asked.

"I'm not sure, but it's more of a hope to me than a belief," Misato believe. "But even so, crying is still disrespectful. In a way, it thinks more about the living than the deceased."

"Rituals are performed by the living." Rei stated. "The dead did not invent funerals."

"You are right, Rei, the living made those ceremonies for their comfort, but there are accepted ways to respect the dead," Misato argued calmly. "Anyway, I just wanted to know that you did the right thing," She ended her discourse with a slurp of broth.

"It felt like we could've, no, should've, done more," he said in a low and harsh voice. He put down his bowl and chopsticks and glared at the table. His voice sounded hollow and detached to himself. "You know, she isn't the first I've seen die.

"There was the woman who took care of Rei and I, when we were kids, in the woods. Then there was the Horaki woman. But this was horrible, much worse, how Ichimonji died.

"She was so alone."

"She wasn't," Rei stated. "We were there."

"But she was alone for so long before we came. It was two weeks, the last time we saw her," Shinji said in the same tone. He almost wished for tears, but felt dry. He had only shed one earlier that day when he was trying to suppress them. "I never noticed how poorly she lived until today."  
"There was nothing to be done," Rei continued.  
"She's right," Misato told him. "You did more than most would have. You risked disease in that filth. I could smell it from you when you walked in."

"I could see that she wasn't contagious," Shinji responded.

"Shinji, that's beside the point. You'll find out that there are many things out of your control. That is a part of growing up," Misato said. "You'll also find out how easy it is to walk away. Those mistakes are a part of growing up, too."  
Misato stopped and left silence. Rei broke the silence by slurping her tea.

"Why don't we clear the table and then prepare for bed?" Misato prompted. She held up three fingers to lecture them. "Misato rule number three, sleep on it. The mess will still be there in the morning."

"Were you referring to your man?" Rei asked in a perfectly neutral tone.

"Gah?" Misato exclaimed. 

Shinji glanced up in surprise.

"What?" Rei asked as she turned to him. 

  
  


12.5 The Morning After

Misato snored. She was sprawled over her futon and clutched Pen-Pen. Shinji's eyes felt as if they were coated with grit. He was tired, but too restless to sleep. Rei slept on her back, but she stirred in her sleep with a throaty moan.

Probably because I'm awake. Shinji thought. He turned toward her and tried to get back to sleep for the tenth time. He closed his eyes and nestled down in his pillow and bedding. The snoring and hushed breathing continued. The snow had left the outside quiet. It was quiet enough to hear the faint hiss of gas feeding the pilot lights.

He curled an arm around Rei. Her hair smelled like fresh fallen rain, a comforting scent. She awoke.

"Not so tight," she said plaintively and sleepily. She loosen the hand around her waist. Shinji buried his face into her hair and drifted to sleep, dragged down by Rei's drowsiness.

He felt as if he were slowly sinking beneath a tepid and soft sea as a light sleep claimed him.

He was alone this time and he stood before the steps to Granny Ichimonji's house once again. The snow fell in an eerie hush. The dry cold air washed over him. The door opened once again, crooked and jammed. Shinji opened the foyer door; it led into a dark room. The walls and roof were warped out of plumb. The room was full of deep shadows. A door slid close behind him. Scuttling black bugs spewed from the straw mats and coalesced into a lumpy stream that flowed to the old woman's room. Without taking off his sandals he ran over the insects, eliciting faint crunches from the crawling mass of roaches. His stomached churned.

Once again the shriveled and small figure lay there. 

A sow sized tick straddle over her still form. It looked up with a man's twisted face. It smiled with bright red Shinji rushed forward and flung the hairy body off the figure. He looked down and saw that the woman's face was old and and filthy, but it was recognizably Rei's face. He let out a silent scream as the black wave of insects flowed over her. He plunged his arms into the mass. A wrinkled white arm emerged from the scuttling darkness. Shinji tried to sweep away the scuttling mass. They clung to his arms and crawled with their small feet raising goose flesh on him. He whimpered with desperation as he tried to clear her face.

Shinji awoke as a hand firmly patted his cheek.

"Shinji," he heard Rei say. He opened his eyes to stare into a pair of clear red eyes staring back at him from a smooth white face. Rei's fine snow hair lay spread around her head. He was straddling her. His hands were on her cheeks. His breath heaved in and out of his chest.

"Shinji!" Misato exclaimed. "What were you doing?"

Shinji turned to see Misato sitting up, cloaked in a blanket printed with violets. She held Pen-Pen next to her underneath his flippers. The penguin daemon raised an feathered eyebrow at the siblings.

"Please move," Rei said. Shinji managed to shake off enough of his stupor to roll off from her. Rei pushed herself up to sitting and wrapped herself in her blue bedding.  
"You know there IS a limit to sibling love," Misato began. 

"What did you see, Shinji?" Rei asked.

Shinji licked his dry lips and cleared his parched throat before beginning.

"I saw it. I saw it again," he began haltingly. "I was in Ichimonji's house and instead of her, I saw you lying there. You were all alone and all these bugs came from the darkness and I tried to clear them off, but they got on my arms.

"It doesn't seem real right now. Not at all," Shinji murmured. "But the feeling still lingers. The fear that Rei might end up like that."  
"That won't happen," Rei said. "We can't be seperated."

"That's seems to be true," Misato said. "I think that we agreed on that, if that puts your mind at ease, Shinji."  
"Mmm," Shinji grunted noncomittally; he avoided eye contact with her. Rei put her arm around him and pulled him close. "Hey, where's my pillow?"

Misato looked around and then turned completely around.

"My bureau!" she yelped and jumped up from her bed. Shinji's pillow had landed in the middle of the desk. Misato gently lifted off the pillow and looked at the mess beneath it. Cosmetics had been spilled and some rouge had been tipped. Fortunately, all of her scent bottles were intact. She shook some rouge off of a letter and turned it over.

Ikari Shinji and Rei, it read.

"Sorry, I completely forgot about this," Misato said. She handed the letter to Shinji. "A lot happened yesterday."

"For us?" he asked as he read the front of the letter. He opened it. His eyes grew wider as he read the short missive. "Father."

"What did you say?" Misato asked as she settled back down before them.

"Father," Rei added. "He wants us to return North."


	13. Homecoming

Outcasts

  
  


13.

  
  


The Horaki ancestral home sat sprawled beneath the old watch tower. Massive gray stone walls and embankments descended in eight imposing levels down to expanses of snow covered rice paddies. Beyond the farms were a line of pines, a sharp drop-off, and then the Fukugawa lands , which extended to untamed forests and hills.

In the old watch tower, Hikari sat huddled to one side of a stone window sill. Yoshi-hiko sat inside of her padded coat. He poked his red furred face from the top of her coat and rested it onto her folded arms. His fur had taken on white wintry streaks. The girl pulled the coat tighter around herself and her daemon.

She exhaled a plume of mist toward the iron sky; it was nearly dawn. Her hands and face were slightly numb from the cold, but the solitude suited her. Her stomach had calmed to dull ache. The details of the dream eluded her, but the nightmare had set her stomach churning and plugged the back of her throat with the taste of bile. Hikari had dragged herself out of bed and dry heaved into the nearest sink. She tried to rinse the foul taste out, but it lingered.

"It's been three days," Yoshi-hiko said. "You haven't been able to sleep or keep anything down."  
"I slept a little tonight," Hikari said. "Father is coming home in a few hours. I don't know what I'll be able to say to him. But whatever he decides will be for the best," she swallowed the last word with a yawn.

"Do you want to go back? It's getting cold up here."

"Maybe in a bit."

She sat there looking up at the dawn sky slowly light up. As the first golden rays cleared the hills, a man's even voice startled her from her drowsy watch.

"Your mother and I used to watch the dawn from here," Lord Horaki said from next to her. Hikari yelped, jumped from the noise, and nearly fell off the window sill; a strong hand caught her by the upper arm. 

"Father, sorry, you startled me," Hikari said in a rush to the man ben over her. Lord Horaki was a tall and neat man. To Hikari, he seemed proper, strong, and kind, all that a Horaki and a noble should be. His face came down to a pointed chin like her face. He wore his hair in a simple top-knot. His gray kimono and leggings were still stained with dirt and dust from the road. 

"It's okay," he said as he let go of her arm. She resettled on the sill. Her father sat across from her with his legs on the inside of the window. His massive canine daemon, Suretooth, lay down next to his feet. "I thought that you might be here."

"You got the telegram," she replied dully. She huddled again and stared at a dirt streak on her father's kimono. He adjusted his trousers.  
"Yes," he replied. "I want to hear what happened, from your own mouth. Take your time."

Though Hikari's stomach was empty, a load of lead lodged at the pit of her belly. She felt sad and tired. The bile crept back up into the back of her throat, the taste of failure. She took a deep breath to steady herself; she did not want to fail any further.

Her account began in the storm and led to the meeting with the weird twins and the night at Katsuragi's house. Hikari described the strange fevered dreams. She tried gloss over her father's inebriaton in the vision, but Lord Horaki asked specifically about that memory. In detail, Hikari recounted the reprimand by Sister Amelie, which she let spiral out of control. The daughter concluded with the ensuing expelling.

Her father listened with his eyes closed and head lowered. He sat so still and quietly that he seemed to be asleep. Politely, she waited for him to answer.

"That is a great deal to think on, Daughter," he finally said. " Please ride with me, meet me in the stables."

"As you wish, Father," was all Hikari could say. She did not expect that answer. Lord Horaki rose from the window. Hikari sluggishly pushed her weight onto her feet and brushed the dust from the seat of her kimono. They descended the echoing, winding stairwell of the watchtower. A drowsy guard saluted them at the bottom. Lord Horaki took a fork in the passageway to the stables.

Oil lamps provided small pools of light in the labyrinthine corridors. Her sandals struck lonely beats in the halls of carved stone. Hikari felt more comfortable when she reached ground level. She pulled off her sandals and walked on confortable tatami mats and among walls of wood and paper.

Quietly, she slipped into her room. Ibuki and Asuka still slept. Ibuki was picture of serenity. Her dove daemon nested over the pit of her stomach. Asuka had kicked her bedding about. Siegsmyrth perched on a stand in the form of a falcon. Hikari took a moment to resettle some of the blankets over her friend. Hikari padded over to the trunks that lined her room and pulled out a change of clothes. She entered into the half-bath connected to her bedchamber and changed into her riding gear: a loincloth, a length linen for support, a short kimono, and a pair of leggings. The used clothing were laid into a wicker hamper. Hikari slipped out of her room again; neither guest had stirred. She carried her coat in her arms.

An old servant stopped after lighting a bees wax candle in a lantern and bowed to her. She inclined her head to him. An middle aged maid stopped sprinkling tea leaves and sweeping to bow to the young mistress. Hikari acknowledged the maid and continued onto the stables. When she arrived at the stable, her mare was already saddled.

Her father waited on his dark stallion. A four foot wide and six inch flat box was tied to the back of his horse's saddled. Lord Horaki urged his horse forward with a light nudge of his heels. Hikari mounted her mare and followed her father. Suretooth trotted along side the stallion. A pair of spear bearing soldiers saluted them as they left.

The sky was a clear blue. Hikari winced from the snow glare once they cleared the outer wall. Above them, the sable characters for Ikari on crimson stood next to the blue and white Horaki banner. Seven other banner flanked the Ikari and Horaki standards. They rode at an easy pace down the winding road out of the fortress an onto a narrow path between the paddies. Hikari could not remember the last time she had seen the countryside cloaked in such a bountiful expanse of flawless white. She reined in slightly; the mount was a little jittery.

"I think she wants to run," her father said called and then tapped his heels on the flanks of his mount. His stallion began a trot and sped to a controlled gallop. Hikari let her mount follow. The rush crisp air enlivened Hikari. The mount pounding beneath her with a powerful gait. She had not felt the rhythm in months and forgot how wonderful it was. The horses churned snow under their hooves. Farmlands fled past. They entered the hush of the pine forest, where a path led up to a promontory. They reined in their mounts to a walk and stopped at the end of the woods. The horses puffed mist and huffed draughts of cold air. Hikari affectionately stroked the back of the horse's graceful neck.

"You're smiling," Lord Horaki said with a grin. Her freckled cheeks were flushed with cold and a smile had crept onto her face during the ride. Her smile settled into a more neutral expression, but she still felt energetic. "What do you see below?"

At the question, Hikari dismounted onto the ankle deep snow. She kept the reins in her right hand, in case her horse panicked. Below lay the white expanse of the Fukugawa estate. The land was hilly and more rocky than the Horaki lands. the Fukugawas were considered an upstart. They were wealthy merchants from Edo who had risen to prominence in the aftermath of the civil war, which the Shogunate had dubbed the War of Unity. Hikari shielded her eyes from the white glare. In the distance, the Fukugawa mansion expanded in conspicuous opulence. It was surrounded by lush gardens and cherry trees transported from Edo. The colder weather and poor soil made the trees a burden to keep, but it also made the Fukugawa gardens a cynosure in the spring. Hikari had once seen the cascade of blushing petals.

She stared intently at the Fukugawa manse. The sprawling many-winged building seemed to be engulfed by a deep shade. After several seconds, it dawned on Hikari that the mansion was not obscured by shadow, but blackened like charcoal. What she initially took for a long, oddly angled shadow was a plume of fallen ash.

"When?" Hikari asked. "The fire," she quickly added. She turned to see that her father had also dismounted. 

"Three days ago," her father answered. "I received news of it a day before your telegram."  
"What happened?"

"Rumor has it that an assassin had slain the Elder Fukugawa. A lone assassin. The gas line was ignited. Several family members and at least a score of servants and guards perished."  
"That's horrible, who would do such a thing?"

"Some would say that we did," her father said calmly. "Think on it for a moment."

Hikari stared at her father and furrowed her brow in concentration. She managed to clear her mind of confusion and murmurs of outrage. For there to be suspicion, there had to be a motive. She did not know of her father having any major feuds. There might have been a serious scandal. She hadn't heard of her sister having any suitors to spurn. She certainly didn't have that problem. The rest of her relations had closer ties to other clans. Nothing. Had to think differently, like Asuka and Sensei at the eatery. They wanted something or we wanted something, conflict. Land? No, the Horaki clan did not want any of their piss poor soil. The Fukugawa fortunes were not built from land; the land was for show. Money; sounded familiar. Money - the clink of coin - the luster of silver, gold, copper. Copper, but not coin. Fukugawa Dairou? He sounded familiar. The Horaki clan had been granted a monopoly on the import of copper. Copper was used in the telegram network. She remembered her father mentioning that Fukugawa Dairou, the grandfather and head of the clan, had petitioned the Shogunate to lift the monopoly in the name of competition, which would strengthen Nippon. Fukugawa Dairou, a dead man.

"Copper," Hikari said finally. "Some would suspect us, because Fukugawa Dairou had peitioned the Shogunate to lift our privilege to import copper."  
"Correct," Lord Horaki said. Hikari felt a wave of relieved. Lord Horaki lowered his voice. "What if we DID have him assassinated?" he asked in a low tone.

Hikari continued to look at him intently and searched his eyes. She could read nothing. She chewed her lower lip. A chill ran through her spine. "I would do whatever you asked of me," she said solemnly.

"Very well," her father answered with equal severity. "What if I were gone, for good. Say that the investigation led to us."

"If that were the case," she began uncertainly, but gained confidence as the thoughts followed each other. "Then the Shogunate would hold the head of the clan accountable. The Fukugawas could demand blood for compensation. Kodama would be the head of the clan. She would be the best chance for a male heir. Therefore it would fall to me to take responsibility so that the burden of honor would be satisfied.

"Because of my age, most people would find it hard to believe, so I would have to compose a convincing explanation," she continued sincerely and seriously. "I would write the note with such venom that no one doubted that it was my foolish plot. Then I would take responsibility with a knife, since it would be more sincere.

"At least that is what I hope that I would do."

Hikari found it hard to meet her father's gaze. He studied her intently; he studied her eyes with the most intensity. Between the staring at the snow glare earlier and her father's gaze, a ache began to constrict behind her left eye. 

"And I believe that you would. Though, why would you not order a retainer or several to take the blame?"

"The deed was committed by a Horaki, the debt should be paid by one," she stated. "Walk the path of justice, though it leads through the land of madness," Hikari quoted from the clan's founder.

Her father considered her words for a long time and finally said. "Well done."  
"Thank you, father," Hikari said, the relief plain in her voice. She bowed deeply from the waist. Her mare gave a snort of protest as Hikari's hand dragged down the reigns. "You had reason to doubt me."

Lord Horaki put a hand lightly on her shoulder. "Rise up, Hikari. You remembered what was important and made a difficult decision in Edo.

"As for the storm, I have something to show you."

  
  


Hikari was elated that her father still had faith in her; she did not ask any questions as she remounted her mare.

Their path doubled back from the woods and rode north. After about an hour, Hikari and her father watered their horses from a stream and fed them dried apples. They rested for a bit and then forded the stream. By early afternoon, they reached a shallow depression that stretched for a hundreds of yards in each direction. It was the womb from which the old castle had been dug. They dismounted and carefully led their mounts down a snow covered path. Tool marks were still visible on the granite. Yoshi-hiko remained on the saddle. Bracken and bare bushes poked from the quarry surface

"Here is fine," Lord Horaki said a short distance into the depression. He untied the worn and scraped lacquered box from the back of his horse and handed it to Hikari. "Please open it."

Hikari set the box on the ground to open it. Her daemon bounded down from the horse, down onto her shoulder to watch. It contained a bolt of roughly woven cotton, yellowed with age and scented with camphor. She flipped several layers of cloth off to reveal a black recurved bow. A single bowstring, closed quiver, and leather sat next to the bow. After a moment, she saw that the ring had horn notch and realized that it could be used like an archer's glove. Hikari looked up for permission and received a small nod.

"Please string it," Lord Horaki ordered.

She had seen a recurved whale bone bow before, but the black horn or bone was different. As she ran her hand over the nicked and worn surface, she felt a thrill of electricity run up her arm. After a brief hesitation, she lifted it and picked up the string. Her fingertips probed the string, which felt as if its surface would slice open her fingers and hand. The ends of the bowstring were already looped. The first loop slid home easily. Hikari had strung and practiced with a samurai's great bow. By comparison, this bow was unfamiliar, but better sized for her. She planted one end next to her foot and pulled back and down. The bow curved easily for her and the top loop fitted into place.

Can't have much pull, she though.

Hikari laid the strung bow back in the box and put on the ring. The notch was made from the same material as the bow. The quiver held handful arrows with their heads pointing outward. The arrows carried a medicinal scent. Hikari pulled a broad headed arrow from the quiver. She transferred the weight of the projectile to her bow hand, drew her right hand past the shaft to the butt of the arrow, and positioned the arrow with her index and middle fingers over the string. The motion was smooth and natural.

Hikari took aim at a bush anchored to a wall of the depression. She pulled the string back with the thumb ring. As she pulled it the string back, another wave of static rippled through her arm into her body. The small hairs on her neck and arms prickled. The pull of the bow was easy. Her vision focused in onto the skeletal bush. It was like looking through a spyglass; every twig and branch became distinct, but her peripheral vision became blurred.

Hikari launched the arrow. Instead of the whip a released string, the air reverberated in a drawn out twang and hummed with the flight of the projectile. The missile drifted in a languid flight. At that speed, the missile's slight deflection to one side and the subtle arc were distinct. The arrow sliced the trunk of the bush into two, continued to fly, and then bore a full inch into the hard stone. Before the severed wood could land, the shaft cracked from impact, and then a bolt of pure white lightning ascended to sky, where it was met halfway to the clear blue heavens by a descending bolt. Time returned to a normal pace as a crackle of thunder exploded and rolled furiously in the quarry. Yoshi-hiko sunk his claws into her coat to keep balance. 

The remnants of the bush smouldered. Hikari breathed heavily; her heart beat at double speed. She felt no fear, only exhilaration.

"Well done," Lord Horaki said as he surveyed the damaged.


	14. Gifts for the Unwary

Outcasts  
  


14. Gifts for the Unwary  
  


Dear Caroline,

How have you been? I have not heard much about that isolated archipelago, though it must be more civilised than the Americas.

I apologize for not having written earlier, but my duties with the General Board of Oblation have kept me busy. The Bolvanger research station is finally fully staffed. The logistics of moving and maintaining equipment this far north have been frightful. In spite of the challenges, we've completed our first round of experiments on Rusakov Particles. We have already found a strong connection between daemons and the human interaction with Dust. I could tell you more details in person, if you wish.

I look forward to seeing you again.

And I remain your close friend,

Marisa Coulter  
  


Asuka read the letter twice. She pulled her fur coat and cap tighter around her. Underneath the luxuriant rust colored pelts, she resembled a small bear. Behind her, Siegsmyrth perched on a stand. A young maid shuffled in quietly, bowed to Asuka, and laid her writing case on the table. The servant proceeded to stoke the coal pit in the middle of the room. Her docile dog daemon waited at the side of the room.

"Are you cold?" the maid asked; she wore a simple kimono with a flat knot in the sash. "Do you wish for me to bring tea?"

"Tea, yes," Asuka answered. "Please," she added absentmindedly. The maid left as quietly as she came.

"Caroline?" Asuka asked aloud. "I haven't heard that since I left Boston."

Bored would have been Asuka's honest response to Maria's question. She had read about Nippon in pulp samurai novels were there were duels on the hour and intrigue lurked in every shadow. Samarai whirling bright katanas and ninja hurling blades of doom. The number of bloody battles portrayed would have surely depopulated the islands by now. Instead, she had spent most of her time in the confines of stuffy classrooms, just as gouty Uncle Otto would have wanted.

"I can't believe that traitor," Asuka said. "Going riding without me."

"I would have wished to spread my wings," Siegsmyrth replied in his harsh voice. He stretched his wings and then settled back onto his perch.

Asuka blew a sigh threw her exposed bangs. "Nothing to be done about it now.

The red haired girl opened her writing case and began composing a response on the ivory colored bonded stationary. Her script was a trail of long slashes with dashes for the tops of her i's and j's.  
  


Dear Marisa,

I have escaped the grasp of the Old Boar. I managed to get around his ridiculous rule about being school. I funded my own. I managed to break out of there as well, as the American so quaintly put it.

The fare here is light and heavy on the fish. It's not to my constitution at all.

I am heading to Hokkaido soon, the northern island. There, my pet project is being completed: the fixed wing craft. This heavier-than-air craft will be far more elegant than the bumbling zeppelins my great-granduncle invented.

I shall be the world's first aviatrix!

I trust that you shall keep this knowledge secret until the time when I triumphantly take to the skies over Paris! That should gall those Gauls!

Yours very truly,

The Red Baroness  
  


Asuka sealed the letter with her war falcon insignia. The letter did not hint at her boredom; it would not do to let Mrs. Coulter know that her protege was susceptible to mere ennui. She replaced the fountain pen, ink, wax, and remaining stamps into the leather bound case.

The quiet servant returned with some tea and bean filled pastries. She poured some tea.

"Would you like me to take the letter?" the maid asked.

"Please," Asuka answered. "Has Hikari returned?"

"Not yet."

"Enjoy," the servant said and left the room again. 

The maid bowed to someone in the hall as she turned to leave. Ibuki Maya slipped in through the open door. Her gray dove daemon flitted to a roof rafter. The former teacher's cheeks were apple red from the cold. Ibuki crossed the room and joined Asuka at the table. The woman pulled off her coat and soaked in the warmth with a long contented sigh. 

"Good morning," Ibuki said and poured herself a cup of tea in a spare cup. "I mean, afternoon."

"Hello, Ibuki-sensei," Asuka replied nonchalantly. "Have fun?"

"Well, it was interesting to observe traditional medicine at work," Ibuki answered around a bite of pastry. "I only learned foreign medicine.

"The people here are so proper," she continued admiringly. "The servants and farmers seem fairly well off. The Horaki doctor sees the common folk as well. It's no wonder that Lord Horaki had embraced experimental theology to improve the lot of others. The reeve told me that the rice yield has nearly doubled in the past few years."

"I see," her former student answered.

"So how are you feeling?" Ibuki asked.

"Cooped up."

"So would you like to join me for a walk?" a woman's voice asked at the door. "Baroness?"

A woman in her late twenties stood at the door. Her demeanor reminded Asuka of a noblewoman. The black kimono and white sash were cut to subtly show off her well formed figure. The mole under her right eye only added to her beauty. She held her cat daemon in her hands.

"Sempai?" Ibuki said breathlessly. "What are you doing here?"

"Sister Ibuki," Ritsuko said. "I am here as Bishop Ikari's adjunct. Father Fuyutski is back in Hokkaido.

"I do not believe that we have been acquainted, Baroness. I am Akagi Ritsuko, a member of the Sisterhood of Curie."

"Call me Asuka," the girl answered. "No Baroness, no Caroline Zeppelin von Langstein, just Asuka."

"Very well, Asuka," Ritsuko replied. "I am leading the design team for the Cormorant project."

"Really?" Asuka exclaimed. "A woman!"

"Yes, a woman," Ritsuko said. "I am here to fetch Sister Ibuki. Why don't you come along, Asuka? Hikari is there."

"Yes, ma'am," Ibuki said, rising to her feet.

"Why not?" Asuka asked rhetorically, following suit.

*****

All of the occupants in the room were readily recognizable to Asuka. Jinnai was a tower of muscle. A long scar traced down from his right temple to his cheek. He sat to the right of his lord. His lupine daemon lay next to him.

Lord Horaki looked enough like Hikari to be easily identified. His massive canine daemon sat behind him. On his left was his katana. Beyond his katana sat Horaki Kodama. The young woman was not as bossy looking as her younger sister had hinted, but the stiff demeanor was apparent. She too wore a kimono, but it was decorated with flowers. The sleeves were longer, and the cut was different from how Hikari wore one. Kodama's clothes seemed it was more flirtatious. The sash was tied into a bow rather than the flat knot that Hikari and the servants used. Kodama held her white cat daemon close to her. Kodama glanced disapprovingly at her sibling. 

Hikari looked different today. One of her tails has become undone and strands of her hair flared from her head. A bow and quiver sat to Hikari's left. Hikari nodded as Asuka entered. Asuka answered in kind and caught a strange look in her friend's eye, it was a gleam. Even Yoshi-hiko looked strange. She had never seen him assume the shape of a rugged badger before.

Bishop Ikari sat alone. The collar of his black tunic told Asuka, that he was a man of the cloth. He sat close to the coal embers at the center of the room. His face was starkly illuminated by the ruddy light. His glasses reflected the dim flames from the pit. His serpentine companion gave Asuka an unblinking stare before turning back to Lord Horaki. 

Sister Akagi sat to the bishop's right. Ibuki bowed low to both the lord of the land and the lord of the Church. Ibuki settled on Bishop Ikari's left. Asuka took the remaining place next to Ibuki.

"Baroness," Lord Horaki said in a pleasant voice, yet unaffected vioce.

"Lord Horaki," Asuka answered politely. "It's good to meet you."

"I am in your debt," Lord Horaki said solemnly. 

"Not at all," Asuka said. It was a strange feeling, wanting to be polite. Her Uncle Otto's profanity laden demands for etiquette had the opposite effect.

"We are here to discuss the future of your daughter, Hikari," Ikari Gendou said in his low and intense voice. "But first, I wish to present her with a gift."

Sister Ritsuko rose and lifted a box that had sat behind her. She crossed the room and laid the box in front of Lord Horaki with a bow. The nun took her seat again.

Future? Asuka thought. That word only meant one thing to a noble. She leaned back on her heels and glanced at Bishop Ikari. The man was as cold as the cobra daemon that draped around his shoulders. She stole a glance at the disheveled freckled girl who was close paying attention to the talk. Him and her? Asuka felt her stomach flip-flop at the thought.

"We are honored," Lord Horaki replied.

"Please examine the contents," the Bishop prompted.

Lord Horaki lifted the top and removed a katana from the box. It was sheathed in smooth wood. He drew the blade a hand span and sheathed it again before replacing the sword. "This is truly a gift of great value," Lord Horaki said.

"My request remains the same. Please tell me your answer when you have reached it. I will take my leave of you, now," Ikari Gendou stated and stood up. "Baroness, the offer is open to you as well."

Ikari Gendou left the room. Ritsuko bowed to the assembly and left as well. Ibuki followed the elder nun's example.

The door slid close behind them. Ikari Gendou led the way down the corridor. At the next corner, a pair of crimson and sable armored samurai flanked Gendou and shadowed their master. Their tusked facemasks made Ibuki pause. The junior nun met cold stares from behind the grotesque faces. Their mountain cat daemons glared at the skinny woman as if sizing her up as a morsel. Ritsuko waited half a step to allow Ibuki to catch up with her.

"Ibuki," Ritsuko said.

"Yes, Sempai?"

"You too will go on the expedition," Ritsuko said. "You will be the ship's surgeon."

"Me?" Ibuki said in disbelief. "I don't have that much experience."

"Have confindence," Ritsuko said. "You are the most qualified. I have begun your application to the Sisterhood of Curie."

They came to a stop before the rooms that had been loaned to Ikari Gendou. Gendou and his guards had already disappeared into the suite..

"T-thank you, Sempai," Ibuki said. "This means so much to me, I don't know how to repay you-"

"No need," Ritsuko said. "Excuse me, I need to talk to the Bishop now."

Ibuki bowed farewell and left with a spring in her step. Ritsuko smiled sadly at her one time student and then entered the suite. The guards stood to either side of the door like lacquered golems. The rooms were scrupulously neat and clean. Horaki respect, Ritsuko thought. A reflection of their minds.

The Bishop sat near the coal pit drinking hot sake. The Sister joined him and filled his cup.

"That was unusually generous," Ritsuko remarked, breaking the silence.

"A small investment to protect our assets," the man remarked stiffly.

"Ibuki is almost a child herself," Ritsuko added and poured herself a measure of the rice wine. "We are sending mere children on this task."

"It is the only way," Ikari Gendou stated and downed his drink.  
  
  
  



	15. Silhouettes on the Shoji

Outcasts  
  


15. Silhouettes on the Shoji  
  


The door closed behind Ibuki, leaving behind the gentle growl of burning coals. The departers' footsteps faded down the corridor. Jinnai pulled out a long stemmed pipe from his clothes.

"Baroness," Lord Horaki said. "Bishop Ikari is mounting an expedition to the far north of Europe to investigate the northern lights. There are tales of a city glimpsed in the aurora. Ainu legends speak of cities in the sky. I believe that legends are grounded in grains of truth.

"Hikari has also been invited to participate in the investigation."  
"Sure, after Schliemann and Troy, it makes sense," Asuka replied. "I'm game."

"It'll be better than being locked up by Uncle Otto," Siegsmyrth whispered into her ear.  
"Hush, you," the red-haired girl retorted.

"Hikari?" Lord Horaki said.

"Yes, father."  
"Today seems to be full of gifts," he said lightly. "You should be careful about which gifts you accept. Jinnai."

The massive retainer blew out a fragrant stream of smoke and laid down his pipe near the coal pit. He picked up the box and presented it to Hikari. The girl looked small and fragile next to the warrior. Jinnai withdrew to his seat. Hikari lifted the katana from the box and repeated her father's draw. The sleek blade glided from its sheath and caught the ruddy light on its keen edge. After examining the blade, the freckled girl tilted the steel to Asuka to show a name stained on the watered steel.

"Ikari Yuji?" Hikari asked. "Father, is that name familiar to you?

"He was the only son of Lord Ikari and served under Grandfather Horaki at Esashi," Lord Horaki answered. "Ikari Yuji sacrificed his life to save our forebearer. I would appreciate your opinions. Jinnai?"  
Jinnai took a mediative puff from his pipe. With a light tap, he emptied it into the coals.

"Lord Ikari is not subtle man. We should offer several samurai to aid him. Shigeru Aoba is not an exceptional warrior, but he is quick in mind. Suzuhara the Lesser is not so quick in mind, but is quicker with his blade.

"The daisho is good, but the best blades for Lady Hikari are ones that will never drawn. That is my opinion."

"Thank you, Jinnai," Lord Horaki said neutrally. "Kodama."  
"Why are we even discussing this?" Kodama snapped. "The Ikari debt should be paid by a son. Presently there are none. For now, let us reimburse some of the interest as Jinnai suggests. What business does a lady have with blades? What business does a lady going to a frigid wasteland? If Hikari wants to see snow, she can visit Hokkaido.

"Also this sounds rather strange to me. What could a pair of fourteen year old girls do on such a journey. It's ridiculous to even suggest it."  
Jinnai nodded his head slightly at Kodama's words. Asuka tried to supress a dirty look at Kodama and ended up burying grimace in the furry collar of her coat.

"Thank you," Lord Horaki said. "Baroness Soryu?"

Asuka was surprised by his request, but managed not to show it. Marisa Coulter was the only other grown-up who had taken her seriously.

"I will go, because I want to," Asuka stated. "Life is short and I'm going take opportunities where they present themselves. It's as simple as that."

Kodama gave Asuka a surprised look.

"Thank you, Baroness," Lord Horaki said. "Hikari, you don't need to make your decision right now, but I want to hear your response. Please, take your time."

"It's fine, Father," Hikari replied calmly. She pulled a narrow strip of crimson cloth from the box. The girls stood and wound the long cloth twice around her narrow waist. She pushed the katana into her sash. "Father, it is clear to me that I must go," she concluded resolutely. Hikari's eyes held a hard cast. 

Kodama rose to her feet while clutching her feline daemon. His claws were unsheathed and hackles were raised. Her face was a mask, and her daemon's bright eyes bore into Asuka.

"Please excuse me," the elder sister intoned formally. She bowed. "I must prepare for tonight," and then she swept out of the room. Kodama met her maid met at the door and left.

"Asuka, you must prepare as well," Hikari said. "We take our leave of you," she said with bow.

The girl closed the box and hefted it up. Wordlessly, she walked to the door and waited for her friend. Yoshi-hiko preceded her. Asuka rose and curtsied to Lord Horaki.

*****

Hikari's room was modestly furnished with a table and utilitarian trunks against the wall. The only decoration was a colorful screen of a crane fishing. The sense of order and neat open space reminded Asuka of an Amish home she had seen in Pennsylvania. Candle lanterns bathed the room in a warm light.

A faucet ran in the adjacent half bathroom. 

"I can't believe that you thought that," Hikari called through the doorway.

"Well, what was I to think?" Asuka asked nonchalantly. "I saw a dirty old man bearing gifts, meeting with your father. Don't tell me taht the thought didn't cross your mind.

"How long do you think you'll be?"

The red-haired girl paced back and forth still fitted like a small bear. The short walk and the talk had not expiated her pented energy. The exchanges ran in her head. Asuka was headed north, hopefully it would be more interesting than Nippon, though her recent experiences seemed "nice" somehow. She did not like "nice"; it was what the governesses had told her to be. It was like nails across slate. And the curtsy to Lord Horaki tipped out of her almost unconsciously, another anomaly in a strange day.

"I'm almost done," Hikari replied. "I can't believe that my hair was such a mess. I reeked of horse too."

"It would have helped put that ghoulish Bishop off."  
"Hmpf!"

Asuka heard the rustle of cloth and Hikari emerged looking and smelling better. Yoshi-hiko bounded out in his familiar ermine form. Siegsmyrth gave the other daemon a sidelong glance from his perch. Hikari had changed from five minutes before, and it wasn't just the fresh kimono. The look in her eyes was softer; her shoulders had relaxed from the militant march back to her room.

Hikari rooted rooted several trunks.

Asuka noticed that the bow sat on gifts from Bishop Ikari. The limb resembled the blackened bone from a dinosaur skeleton that hung at Oxford. The weapon was out of place near the picture of the fishing crane.

After a few minutes, Hikari surfaced with a bundle wrapped in cotton cloth and laid it on the low table in the middle of the room. Within the bundle were robes of lilac and purple.  
"I don't normally do purple," Asuka said reflexively. "But I'll try this one," Asuka added quickly, fingering the fine cloth.

"Alright, out of the coat," Hikari said.

In record time, Asuka had shucked her coat, cap, dress, and her shift. She barely had time to wrap herself in her arms and work her hands over the white gooseflesh once, before Hikari wrapped her in the first layer of white silk. A second, third, and eventually sixth layer followed. The fine robes darkened from white to lilac to dusky purple. The girl pulled a dark purple kimono over the undergarments of smooth silk. With practiced hands, Hikari shifted the brocade folds into place.

"Hold still," Hikari ordered and then swiftly knotted a sash of royal purple silk into a flower bow. "There."

Asuka turned herself around and looked into the small rectangular mirror sitting on the mirror. Normally, she did not like wearing purple, but the dusky sea at the hem and clouds and stars along the shoulders and collar somehow seemed to be artful rather than tacky. 

"Not bad," Asuka pronounced.

"You look better in it than I do."

"Nonsense."

The many layers of light cloth were also warmer than expected. Asuka initially thought that she would need her fur coat. 

She considered wearing her hawking gage, but decided against it. Asuka picked up Siegsmyrth from his perch and slid open a door to wooden walkway. The moon glinted off of a frost capped pond and the snow topped trees. The cold air abraded her bare face and hands. Asuka lofted her daemon into the air, and he winged over to a tree. She shut out the night. Siegsmyrth could home in on her later and make a suitably dramatic entrance.

"What are you going to wear?" she asked Hikari.

"Well, I don't think I'm going," Hikari answered abashedly.

"What?" Asuka exclaimed. "That's not fair. Why not?"

"Kodama will be hostess, I don't think that she'll be overly thrilled if I'm there. Besides, I should spend some time with Nozomi, especially since I'm leaving," Hikari said before falling into an awkward quiet.

"What about me?" Asuka asked with mock huffiness.

"Well, you're invited. Women usually don't get to sit in, at least not these days. Kodama has to bring home a husband, so father wants her to meet some people. Also Kaji the Minstrel will be there, he's very good, not at all cautious or discrete, but he's good."  
"Aww, another court entertainer, they're all the same, so full of themselves. Well at least, I can always beg off from fatigue," Asuka emoted with a dramatic hand to her brow. "Hey, have you ever had your hair french braided before?"

"French braid?"

"Yeah, sit in front of the table."  
Asuka knelt, standing on her knees. Her friend sat patiently. Asuka dredged the details from old memories of Marissa Coulter had taught her how to fix her red hair. After one or two false starts, she managed to start weaving. Hikari's hair was thicker and heavier than her own bright tresses; the only one that the young baroness had ever touched. Years ago, when Asuka was four or five, her then living aunt had taken Asuka to the home of an acquaintance. The hostess had a pair of daughters, four and six years years old or so. They tied and braided each other's hair. Asuka had sat to one side and watched them, when they asked her in their heavy Bavarian accents to weave her hair; she had shook her head and refused. She couldn't remember why she had refused.

The memories had distracted her briefly. She backed up three steps and then pull the black locks into position. The pattern emerged and the final product vaguely reminded her of a nautilus's shell. Asuka's fingers lingered for a moment on the soft hair. The touch was warm, comfortable, and unfamiliar. The Barvarian sisters. Asuka's fingers unconsciously slid down and rested on Hikari's shoulders. Sisters, cousins, relations, friends.

For a moment, the urge to lean forward and curl her arms around Hikari stole over her. Asuka felt like she wanted to say something, something as simple as "Thank you". Words as unfamiliar as "Thank you". She said them absentmindedly to servants, but not to an equal; not like she wanted to say it now. Her throat dried up at the strange phrase and stuck.

"Is something wrong?" Hikari asked.

"No, not at all," Asuka said and lifted her hands away from Hikari's shoulders.

As Hikari rose, Asuka pried open her dry mouth again."Hey, Hikari."

"Yes?" Hikari said and turned toward her.

A knock sounded at the door. Hikari glanced at Asuka again, but Asuka said nothing.

"Come on in!" Hikari called to the door. Kodama's maid opened the door. Upon entering the room with her calico companion, she bowed.

"Lady Kodama wished to speak with you," the maid said deferentially.

Hikari's older sister walked into the room holding her glaring feline daemon. Kodama was trailed by a younger servant with a squirrel daemon. The second maid bowed as well.

"Good evening, Baroness, Lil' Sis," Kodama pronounced cooly.

Asuka inclined her head. Hikari stood with her shoulders square.

"Good evening, Elder Sister," Hikari said formally.

The second maid spoke in a gentle voice. "Good evening, I am here to show Baroness Soryu to the main hall," the young woman bowed and backed out of the room. The first maid exited the room as well.

Asuka glanced at Hikari, but her friend's gaze had locked with Kodama's.

"I'll see you later, Asuka," Hikari said without turning.

"Okay," Asuka said and entered the twilit hallway. 

Kodama's handmaid closed the door. The candles in the room cast four shadows upon the shoji: two women and two daemons. The charcoal caricatures waved enormous fingers at each other and jawed with gigantic mouths. Their hard and sharp words cut through the rice paper barrier. She did not listen to the words, but felt the rancor keenly. She wanted to walk in to stop it. Asuka reached out a hand to the door. The two maids froze. The first maid approached the visitor by a step. Asuka stopped with her hand on the wooden frame. An insistent whisper in her mind told her that she should not interrupt a family dispute. Family, something she was not. Something she never would be. Asuka let her hand fall from the wood and turned to the second servant.

"Lead the way," Asuka ordered.

The maid nodded in relief and led her away.


	16. A Short and Quiet Interlude

Outcasts

  
  


16. A Short and Peaceful Interlude

  
  


Hikari stalked down the corridor away from Kodama's retreating form. She held Yoshi-hiko in her arm's, glad for the daemon's warmth. Hikari felt the urge to turn around face and give her older sister the deluxe raspberry package, complete with the red under her right eye. Kodama's words needled her. She had let her older sister get in the last word, but had walked out with all the dignity that she could muster. Hikari would not give Kodama the satisfaction to know how much her words had affected her.

"You need to grow up!" Kodama had screamed. "Father wanted a son so badly, and you stepped right in. You're a girl, so act like one. 

"It was fine when you were a kid, but you have to show some responsibility now. 

"What daughter wouldn't want to spend time with her father like that? Hunting, fishing by his side. Don't you think I wanted to be with him too? But he had daughters, and our name rides on us. 

"You're fourteen, ready to be betrothed. What man would want a wife like that?

"But, it isn't fair to Father either, taking advantage of his feelings like that. Don't try to be what you aren't, Hikari."

Hikari tried to block out the words, but they rang in her ears.

"Have I been unfair to Father?" Hikari asked. "No, they asked for me and I'm going to do what's needed. We've been whittled down to the three of us and father. We have to do what's right.

"Heaven sees, and Heaven punishes," she whispered to herself. She found herself at Nozomi's door. Hikari knocked lightly. There was no response, so she opened the door and entered the dim room. A single paper lantern dimly lit the room.

Someone hummed an old song quietly behind the silk screen. Hikari did not recognize the tune. Hikari closed the door and circled the screen. The wood stove at the center of the room crackled contentedly. Lord Horaki had it installed when Nozomi started coughing from the coal smoke, even though they tried to find cleanest burning coal.

A young woman with long black hair sat with her back turned to Hikari. Nozomi, her younger sister, slept in the woman's lap, clutching her rabbit daemon. A boy slept nearby, wrapped in a blanket. His small fox daemon napped next to him. A golden haired canine daemon popped open an eye toward the new arrival. Hikari walked around the woman to approach her from the front. The daemon looked familiar.

"Miss Hikari," Sakura said softly. "Good evening, please forgive my intrusion."

"Hello Sakura," Hikari murmured. She sat down across from Sakura."What are you doing here? Not that I'm unhappy to see you."

A tray of tea and half eaten snacks lay between them. Hikari recognized the boy napping to her left was Kagioka Ichiro; his father's banner hung to beside the Ikari banner on the south gate. Their clan was a small clan, and her father was considering betrothing Nozomi to Ichiro when the time came.

"Misato sent me on some business in town," Sakura said. Her voice was as gentle as Hikari recalled. Her hand gently stroked Nozomi's hair. "Ambergris is hard to come by these days. Other bases just don't keep the scent as well."

"I think that I've had whale once as a kid," Hikari said. "I've heard that they're harder and harder to find."

"Yes, I've heard that, too. How have you been?"

"I've been better," Hikari said, glad that the woman had not asked her about school. "So how have you been?"

"I have been better. I wanted to get back down to Edo, but Kaji managed to convince me to come along. He said that he'll entertain the adults, and that I could entertain the children; so here I am.

"It's not my usual clientele, but I think that I like children better," Sakura said with a small smile. "But I don't tell the men that."

"I suppose that you shouldn't," Hikari said and fell silent.

"She waited for you, but she fell asleep." Sakura whispered. "Have you done something with your hair?"

"Asuka braided it for me."

"It looks good, but you may want to wear something a bit dressier next time."

"Probably," Hikari agreed. She was wearing an old house kimono. 

Nozomi slept peacefully, cuddling her half-grown rabbit companion; his coat was winter shaggy.

"So how are the twins?" Hikari asked.

"Shinji and Rei? They were as usual, the last time I saw them. They were going mushroom picking. Each year they go someplace and comeback with a basketful of matsutake. They're always the best kind, too, small and barely open."

"I missed the o-matsu this fall, since I was at school," Hikari said.

"I've probably missed the pine mushrooms, too. No matter how many they bring back, it's not enough for those greedy guts. Hikari?"

"Yes?"

"Should I wake Nozomi up?"

"No, she looks so content."

"Then, you should sleep here tonight, I think Nozomi would like that."

"Yeah, It's been a long time," Hikari agreed. And it may be a long time before until next time.


	17. The Duelists

Outcasts  
  


The hoof beats were too loud, and the coach tossed like a ship lost in a storm.

Asuka's head was squeezed by a book press tightened by a sadistic titan. She thought that there could be no worse feelings than the aches, fever, and chills that she had experienced the week before. She was wrong. The ailments had returned accompanied by a hangover.

"I think that was a bit much," Ibuki chided the green-tinged girl.

"But the cups were so small," Asuka complained. "Isn't there something you could give me? Arsenic?"

Asuka pushed her ailing daemon upright on his seat. She huddled miserably in her thick coat.

"Time is the only cure," Ibuki said.

The carriage finally stopped. Ibuki pushed the door open and let in the sun. Her daemon hopped from her shoulder down to the seat and flitted out of the door. Asuka gave a vampiric hiss as the light stabbed into her eyes and head. After the sunlight disappeared behind a fortuitous cloud, the girl reluctantly climbed out of the coach with Siegsmyrth unsteadily perched on her shoulder.

The lead coach had stopped in front on a large western style hotel. A lanky samurai with shoulder length hair directed the servants in unloading of the boxes, trunks, and chests from a pair of trailing carts. Her possessions made up the most of the bulk. 

"Where's Hikari?" Asuka asked Ibuki.

"Lady Hikari went to visit the shrine on the hill," a bald samurai said. His wolf daemon prowled nearby. Asuka recognized Suzuhara the Greater from last night, when he had been one of the guards at the gathering. 

"She should be back shortly," he added.  
  


17. The Duelists  
  


The sky was spotted with clouds.

"Relax," a rumpled youth said. The man quaffed spirits from an earthenware jar. He pushed his daisho out of the way as he slumped against the mossy mass of rock. "Just like yesterday, five gold if he doesn't show." 

The man ran a hand through the fur of his ferret daemon.

"Well, even a fool's gold is good gold," a tall and well muscled man responded. He sipped from his jar. His strong angular features twisted easily into a sneer. A lean wolf daemon curled at his feet; she glared at the portly canine daemon of a third sake drinker.

The third drinker, who was as corpulent as his daemon, glared at the tall man. "You should not speak so of your betters, ronin."

The ronin clasped his katana in his left hand with his thumb against his guard.

"Calm down, a fool's gold is good gold, unless it's truly fool's gold," the first man interjected affably. "I admit that I'm a fool. Any man who doesn't realize that he swims in a sea of enemies is a fool. I, Fukugawa Chomei, was such a fool," he said with a quirked grin.

"Isn't that right?" he inquired of the Buddha.

The many armed stone relief of Lord Siddhartha to his right did not respond. The trio lounged against the foot of a steep rocky hillside. Open portals, which resembled three orange calligraphy strokes, bounded the plateau of the path. Before them, a droplet shaped clearing in the trees expanded until it was bounded on the far end by a bend in the road.

Their horses were tethered to a nearby tree.

Irazuki tippe back a mouthful of rice wine, but did not swallow. The mercenary stood up, and sprayed the face of the relief with alcohol. He bared his sharp teeth at Chomei's corpulent friend, who gave him a cold stare.

"We have visitors," Chomei announced.

They all focused on a pair of mounted figure who appeared on the road, clearing the edge of the trees. They dismounted and approached the foot of the hill on foot.

"Blue and white," the portly man whispered in surprise. He put aside his jar of sake.

"Well, well," the ronin said. "It may be my lucky day."

"Luck had little to do with it," Chomei answered. "I told you that this would happen."

"Wait, the man isn't Lord Horaki," the rotund youth reported. "The small boy, no wait, it's a girl."

"Wait is right," Chomei said calmly. "It must be a legal challenge and duel, Irazuki. Otherwise the spirit of Fukugawa Dairou will not rest."

The trio fell silent as the pair approached. They tethered their horses at the opposite side of the clearing from their three horses.

"It's not like we're going to get ambushed this close to town," the girl said to the tall young man next to him. She was dressed like a samurai from her hakama pants to her arm greaves to dark blue and white kimono. A daisho was belted to her waist. The man was similarly attired.

Irazuki gave out a harsh laugh at her comment.

"What's so funny?" the approaching samurai demanded in his Osakan accent.

Irazuki studied the approaching samurai. He was athletic, but a virgin, he concluded contemptuously. Both in bed and with the blade. He judged Osakan to be worth a single katana swing away from the bone littered slopes of Yomi. He, Irazuki, had slain twelve men as a samurai and twenty-three as a ronin. The Osakan's daemon was a strange one, though. The companion was too small and lean to be a bear, but the claws seemed too long and articulate for a wolf or canine.

The girl was probably a lady. No girl could be a proper samurai, Irazuki thought. A lady could buy her gear and play. No true warrior would have a white streaked ermine daemon. She was thin and narrow, not even a proper handful. She would probably be bedded by some swinish merchant with boils, Irazuki thought with an inward grin at the image.

Irazuki's daemon perked his ears and glared hungrily at the girl.

"What?" the girl asked Irazuki.

"Good morning," Chomei greeted unctuously. He affected a slight bow, and his placed left hand over his right as Celestials do.

"Good morning," the girl responded warily, keeping her distance. Her eyes flitted to the blades and sake.

Irazuki noted that she stood a step from the closest of blade's reach.

"I give you greetings from Fukugawa Chomei," the man said with a smile.

"Greetings, I am Horaki Hikari," the girl responded. "And this is Suzuhara Touji.

"I give you my sincere apologies for what happened to your grandfather."

"Excellent. Fukugawa Dairou also gives you greetings," Chomei said with the same smile.

"What do you mean?" the girl named Hikari asked.

"He spoke to me last night," Chomei stated. His smile fell from his face, leaving behind a puffy face with a red blotched complexion. His lined eyes resembled the desiccated bottom of a lake bed. His breath stank of the rice wine. "He told me to wait here for you. Irazuki," he commanded.

"I, Irazuki," the tall man intoned. "Challenge you to a duel. To give you a fighting chance, I will give you first strike."

"Hold on!" Touji yelled.

The girl swept the three with a hard glare. It meant nothing to Irazuki. Will, spirit and all the other trash that his master had spouted had fallen beneath his sword. It was about strength and speed and cunning.

"Fine then," she snapped. "You are the challenger, so I will choose the weapons. Do you have a bow?"

The reply mildly surprised the mercenary. Irazuki nodded.

She sprinted for her horse.

Touji's jaw dropped. "Wait a moment!"

Chomei glared at the girl. The second man froze with astonishment.

Irazuki, the ronin, sprinted for his horse, Touji followed close behind. Chomei's friend sprung forward and screamed a war cry at Touji.

"You will not prevent heaven's justice!" he roared at Touji. He drew his katana and charged with his sword poised for an overhand attack. His portly dog daemon ran at his heels. Touji ran to his horse with his hand steadying his katana; his daemon sprinted beside him with her odd gait. Chomei tossed aside his half full jar and belatedly chased after his friend.

The girl sprung into her horse and strapped her quiver onto her waist. She glanced up at the opposing duelist who was doing the same. Irazuki prepared his eight foot long great bow. Hikari rode away from Touji before he could grab the reins to her mare.

The fat man was nearly on top of him. Touji's daemon turned around and made a slashing pass at the man's calf and connected. A hot blood splattered against the snow. The blow was enough the throw the deadly slash off target; Touji easily avoided it as he reached his stallion. He grasped the six foot long sheath that hung from the saddlebags. In one smooth motion, a gleaming daikatana was drawn. His primeval daemon avoided a bite from the man's canine daemon and returned to his side as Touji assumed a stance with his weight on his back foot. The blade was level with his ear, bright edge pointed skyward, left hand forward.

Touji held his stance for a heartbeat as his attacker finished recovering from his overbalanced attack. The corpulent man furiously churned snow with his rushing steps. He tried to knock Touji's six foot long sword aside. As steel rang against steel, the daikatana followed the downward swing of katana. With a drop and a turn of his arms, Touji rotated the blade. He shifted his weight to his enemy and thrust his daikatana upward and forward. The sword's point traced a small arc underneath the man's guard and speared him though the chest. The man stopped after his momentum had carried him a full foot down the shaft of the two-handed sword. The end of the blade erupted from the man's back, sending a plume of blood onto the trampled snow. The dying man's sword stopped mid-swing. The heavy burden of steel slipped from swiftly enervating his hands.

Dark red blood flooded the youth's mouth and spilled over his lower lip. Touji's daemon rushed forward and tackled the man from Touji's daikatana. The dying man slumped to the snow gurgling and drowning in his own blood. His canine daemon swooned to the ground. Touji's daemon retreated and stood ready as Chomei charged with his sword draw. 

Suzuhara was ready. His pulse had reached a steady and thrilling rhythm. His breaths came hard and steady. He swept his sword around in an arc and shifted his weight backward. He could not longer hear the scream from his enemy's mouth. His own war cry was also muted to his own ears. Touji pivoted around his trailing leg and swept in a circular motion, around and over. Chomei raised his blade to ward off the attack. The daikatana struck down in a ruthless arc.

Touji felt the power blossom from his blow as the swords clashed. The impact carried through his arms like a surging wave pounding onto his body. The shorter sword shattered, showering the young Fukugawa with a shower of shards, large and small. One cruelly shaped fragment punctured his right eye. The daikatana continued downward and crushed into Chomei's left arm greave and then cut into his right shoulder until it was stopped halfway through by the resistance sinew and bone. Chomei collapsed backward. He dropped the remainder of his katana. The end fragment spun behind him to come to rest in the snow. Chomei clutched his ruined eye. A puddle of blood soaked Into the white snow. The pale wounded man whimpered and trembled on the ground.

Touji forced in and out several hard breaths and collected himself.

"Hikari," he gasped. The samurai turned to see a the riders face off, bows ready. Hikari and the ronin had paused momentarily in their duel.  
  
  
  


Irazuki ignored the commotion to the far side of the clearing as he mounted his horse. He secured his quiver to his waist and maneuvered to the widest part of the droplet. He had to admit that the Horaki girl rode a good piece of horse flesh. The mare was a full hand span taller at the shoulder than his mount, which looked emaciated by comparison. The girl was already ready; her mount was turned toward him. She raise short bow. He raised his daikyu. His lean wolven soul mate stood ready. A hundred gold he gloated.

She let her bow fall to its ready level and galloped towards him. Her ridiculous rat-like daemon sat in the front of the saddle. He kicked his mount and matched her speed. The duelists rode across the snow covered clearing. Irazuka drew out a broad headed arrow from his quiver. By modern rules, they rode past each other and traded parting shots. 

He held his bow steady and aimed at her lithe torso. She held the limb of her bow ready. They galloped in parallel paths separated by ten yards or so. They closed on each other, their mounts' hooves pounded and churned snow. His wolf companion loped beside him. Twenty yards. Irazuki pulled the string back and prepared to launch the red fletched missile into her back. Fifteen, ten. He noticed that she had not nocked an arrow. Five yards, and then they passed each other. He kicked in a little speed in case she made a last moment attempt.

Mock me, will you? he seethed. What the hell was that little bitch doing?

He relaxed the pull on the daikyu and turned his mount for another pass. The girl rode at him. Twenty-five, twenty yards, and closing. The girl still hadn't fitted an arrow to the bowstring. Five, he drew his arrow. Passed. The ronin launched the deadly missile at her back. The whispering arrow flew its course and in two heart beats; it had sped through the twenty odd yards that separated them. The shot looked as if it would meet her right between the shoulders. To his surprise, the arrow soared wide to the girl's right. It flew harmlessly into the woods. 

They faced off once again.

"I thought that I was to have the first shot," Hikari called out brazenly.

"I, Irazuki Kabuto, have slain thirty-five men!" the ronin screamed.

"I don't care!" the girl yelled back.

"I will not by mocked by you!"

They struck their heels to their mounts and rode at each other in a gallop. This time, the ronin thought in rage. He kicked his stallion into a thundering run to speed up his shot. He nocked another arrow and with satisfaction, launched it at her back as they passed.  
  
  
  


The ronin's face was a mask of twisted rage. A voice murmured sweet words into her ears, and those words sent a thrill through her blood. She was confident. The emotion she felt was elation. They closed in on each other. Four seconds, three, two, one. The ronin had nocked another arrow. She sped her mare up into an out and out run. The next arrow also drift to the right. Her next action felt like a new born reflex.

Without looking, Hikari shot out her right arm. She felt the wind begin to pass through her hand. She closed her hand. The shaft of the arrow burned red hot in her grasp as she clenched it to a halt. An line of hurt cut across the middle of her palm.

Hikari turned to face her opponent against. Casually, she flicked her braid from her shoulder. She displayed the captured arrow. A droplet of blood slowly ran down the shaft.

She put the reins into her mouth and then kicked her mare into a gallop once again. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Touji had mounted. Once more shot. That was all that she needed; she was sure of it. The ronin screamed curses at her. She ignored him and calmly nocked the stolen arrow. At three seconds separation, she drew back the bow string. Two, she took aim. One second separated them. This time she leaned back and pulled the mare to a slower gallop. As she guessed, he launched a little early. The arrow went wide to her left direction. They passed each other.

Hikari let him take a good look at her aim. She shifted her bow and launched the arrow several steps ahead of the other duelist.

As she launched the arrow, a surge of anabaric power rushed through her body like the fury of a storm striding across a blackened sky.

As before, her eyes and mind sped faster than the flight of the arrow. A stray droplet of blood flew from the arrow as it launched into flight. The droplet danced crazily in the strange wind that played around her and protected her. The single droplet dispersed into the finest mist as it struck the wind shield surrounding her.

The ronin's chestnut stallion managed one and a half steps before the arrow struck into the ground and called up a bolt of lightning. This time though, the blast did not stop at a single stroke. A flurry of bolts leapt into the sky. The chestnut bucked and panicked a wall of anabaric power rose before him. The horse rose onto his two rear hooves, and hurled the ronin from the saddle. The thin bow fell from the man's grasp as he tried to cling onto the maddened animal. The ronin smashed head first onto the ground. The rider's foot caught in the stirrup, and his limp body was dragged face down as the stallion fled in blind fear from the patch of smoldering, steaming earth.


	18. Small Acts of Mercy

Outcasts  
  


18. Small Acts of Mercy  
  


"Help me!" an dry and brittle voice quavered at Touji.

Hikari transferred the reins back to her now free hand and guided her panting mare over to Touji. An old bald monk knelt over the wounded Fukugawa. Hikari quickly dismounted. Touji followed. The monk's gray and ancient tanuki daemon circled the man's ailing ferret daemon, who was starting to fade. The monk began a chant for the dead. Hikari pulled a pack out of her saddle bag.

Touji laid his heavy daikatana onto the snow. He tried to staunch the heavy bleeding with his hand. As Hikari approached, he wrenched open the warm and moist fabric around the man's shoulder. Hikari rummaged through the bad and pulled out a carefully wrapped bundle. She removed the wrapping and brought out a fibrous brown mat, then carefully tore it in half. The torn moss exuded a dozen spring scents. Hikari slipped the sheet into the wound and packed snow around the deep gash. Touji held the man down as Chomei feebly tried to struggle.

The dried bloodmoss was worth prince's ransom, but the bleeding was quickly staunched. Chomei still seemed to be breathing more evenly. They bound the wound in lengths of linen.

"Touji, we have to get him to town," Hikari said. "I'm sorry about what happened here," she said to the monk.

"I shall take care of the dead, Lady," the monk said solemnly. She could not read his expression, but she bowed before turning to the brown mare.

Suzuhara had already mounted. He slung Fukugawa in front his saddle. The primeval bear daemon reluctantly picked up the other man's daemon in her jaws. Touji retrieved his two handed blade and wiped it on his kimono before sliding it back into its sheath.

Meanwhile, Hikari cleaned up her medical kit and returned to her mare.

They followed the trail left by the ronin's fleeing horse.

*****

"What's that racket?" Ibuki asked as she heard several yelling voices from outside.

"I dunno," Asuka responded in a surly tone.

Asuka pushed aside the heavy drape and looked out of the window. Below, people were fleeing out of the path of a runaway horse. The chestnut seemed to drag something in tow. She unlocked the window and let Siegsmyrth out. Cold air whipped into the room.

"I've got to see this," Asuka exclaimed. She quickly pulled on her fur coat and cap around herself. She pounded out of the room.

Ibuki blinked. Her dove daemon darted out of the window to follow the red falcon. She slammed the window close to keep the heat in, then followed Asuka's path. As the nun came down the stair, she pulled on her padded coat. A servant bearing bedding jumped out of the way. 

"Sorry," Ibuki shouted over her shoulder. "What is with that girl?"

She wove through the crowd in the lobby of the hotel. When she emerged from the lobby, she tracked a small red bear headed to a small crowd. The people along the street stood from a distance, some surprised, other shocked at what they had seen. Quiet had descended over the boulevard. Ibuki walked quickly to the crowd to hear a pained cry. The neighing was sharp; it was almost human. She stood next to Asuka.

A stallion had collided to a pottery stall in the middle of the road. Clay shrapnel scattered over a ten foot radius. A foreleg had been broken; the break had displaced a spur of bloody bone to outside of the skin. A still form lay under the fallen horse. From the wound on the head and the angle of the neck, Ibuki could see that the man was dead. She wanted to approach the body, but the horse's kicking and struggling made it too dangerous.

Ibuki tried to lead Asuka away, but the girl stood rooted in place, drinking in the scene. They listened to the terrible sounds of the tortured animal for a long minute or two before a policeman came running into the crowd. He shouldered past Ibuki.

"This is horrible," Ibuki whispered.

"Back away," he shouted. "Back away.

"Damn horse, running amok," he groused under his breath. The man drew his wakizashi and took a long time determining where to strike. As he deliberated, the pained cries continued. Another half of a minute passed before he stabbed down at the throat and cut the windpipe. The stallion struggled less and stopped screaming as it hacked up blood. The policeman was cleaning his sword when pounding hooves halted behind the crowd. A small warrior dismounted. The lithe figure walked through the ring of standing people. Ibuki saw that it was Hikari. The girl was splattered with blood. The sleeves of her kimono were soaked in rust red. She stank of a moist and hot iron scent. The young Lady's expression was flat.

She knelt down next to the suffering horse. She dealt it a final blow with her wakizashi, slicing through the jugular. The stallion gave a final liquid snort before he settled down.

"Who are you?" the policeman demanded haughtily. She looked up at him. "Sorry, milady," he apologized and bowed.

Hikari turned her attention to the sound of flapping of wings as several crows descended near the corpses. The girl stared at the large carrion birds as they cawed out in their coarse voices. The largest black bird fixed her with a sidelong stare and squawked a raucous measure at her. His black clothed chorus sang a discordant refrain.

"Go away," Hikari screamed at them.

Several people in the crowd backed away, including the policeman. With a harsh flaps, the murder of crows took to flight. The dun and white snow was littered with black feathers and stain red. The crows continued call to each other. 

"Lady Hikari!" a raw voice called from behind. Shigeru Aoba and Suzuhara the Greater knelt before the lady. "Are you harmed?" Shigeru asked.

"No, this blood is not mine," Hikari replied in a tired voice. The samurai rose up, relieved.

A tradesman approached her cautiously. He stopped several steps away when he saw the two armed men..

"Young, er- mistress," the raggedly dressed man said humbly. "My cart was damaged along with these humble wares I was transporting. They were not much, but they were my livelihood."

He bowed deeply to her. "If you could find it in your heart-"

Hikari reached into her clothes and pulled out a small pouch. She pitched the small bag to the man.

"Ten pieces of Middle Kingdom silver," she said.

The man knelt and kowtowed. "Thank you very much, milady is most generous!"

"Excuse me," the policeman said respectfully to Hikari.

Ibuki looked more closely at the girl. Hikari was armed with her daisho. She expertly cleaned off her short blade, and powdered it as she spoke to the policeman. It wasn't the swords or the bow and quiver. It wasn't even the blood, but something was very different about her one time pupil. She looked more like a battle hardended samurai than a fourteen year old girl. An intimidating aura radiated from her small form, as if she could lash out with her deadly weapons at a blink of an eye.. It was hard to believe, but Ibuki felt it.

"Yes, if I may, I will report to the police station tomorrow morning and make a statement," Hikari answered him.

"That won't be necessary," the policeman said as he wiped sweat from his brow. He accidentally smeared horse's blood over his forehead. "We shall send someone by tomorrow morning."

"Then I will take my leave of you," Hikari replied.

"As you wish," the policeman said with a bow. "Have a good day."

"If you will," Shigeru said and led the group to the hotel. The elder Suzuhara brought up the rear.

"Hikari, what happened to you?" Asuka asked her in a hushed and excited voice.

"I'll tell you later," Hikari said.

Ibuki felt a momentary relief as Hikari's face cracked from her hard mask. The girl looked stricken by doubt and fear.

"The crows, they spoke," she whispered.

"What?" Ibuki blurted.

"They told me: 'feast, feast', 'she'll make the feast'," Hikari concluded in the same stunned voice.  
  


18.5 Photogrammes in the Mind  
  


Misato led the young small boy by the hand through down the white stone path between the hedgerows. She had forgotten the colors of the hedges, and even misplaced the hue of the sky. The default colors were sepia and dun. She looked down at the boy next to her. He looked up with his clear blue eyes and flashed a gapped tooth grin. It was the first after Yui's funeral. Misato managed to smile back. They continued to the heart of the garden. Pen-Pen walked on the other side of her to keep away from the boy's grasping hands. The rudeness was disconcerting, but she could understand the urge since he did not have a daemon of his own.

The hedges were becoming overgrown. Dutch tulips grew in a disarray; last year, they had grown in tame rows and columns. Dandelions and forget-me-nots began to invade the ranks. The forsythias had grown long and spindly with small and sparse flowers.

The white blocks led to a circular open space. Four empty stone basins surrounded a white painted wooden gazebo. A sepia Ikari Gendou knelt on a cushion facing a small Ikari Rei. Rei turned around to see her brother and her nanny. Shinji waved to them. Rei stared at them with her red eyes. Ikari Gendou looked up expectantly.

Misato tugged on Shinji's hand. The boy reluctantly advanced. Misato's firm grip propeled him forward to the tall figure known as Ikari Gendou.

"Hurry!" the man barked. "I haven't got all day."

"Come on, Shin-chan," Misato urged in a bright tone. Slow step by step, they made it to under the wooden canopy. 

The walked up the steps. Shinji began to walk to his sister, but Gendou interrupted him.

"Sit there," the imperious man ordered jabbing a finger to a lonely spot at the edge of the open structure. Shinji complied. He looked down to avoid the man's harsh glare. "Katsuragi, put this box in front of the boy."

Misato wordlessly complied. She disliked the man intensely, but he was her employer. She took the oaken box from beside Gendou and gently placed it before Shinji. Shinji focused down and seemed to want to fold onto himself and shut out the world again. Misato felt like yelling at the boy, it had taken a half of an hour to coax him out of his room. Instead, she flipped open the lid.

The velvet lined container held three objects: a knife made to look like a miniature sword, a writing brush, and a gold coin. The boy looked up briefly at his father who sat like a statue, saying nothing. Shinji looked at Misato who gave him a small encouraging smile. Finally, he turned to Rei who also remained silent.

The boy went back to the box. He touched the blade briefly, but his hand quickly withdrew from it. He handled the brush and seemed to like it, but put it back. Finally, he handled the gold coin. He ran his figures over it. He buffed it with his breath and polished it with the hem of his kimono. That surprised Misato, she would never have guess Shinji to be drawn to money.

He stood up and toddled over to Rei. He knelt before her and offered her the gold piece to Rei. The girl considered the shiny coin. She did not show much interest in it, but solemnly took it from the boy and gave him a rare small smile.

At that Ikari Gendou pounded his hand on the wooden boards to push himself up to standing. Without a single word, he gave a loud snort. He left the gazebo, alone.

Misato opened her eyes from her drowsing half-sleep and looked around the train car. Shinji and Rei slept on the bed across from her. They were headed back to him, back to Ikari Gendou.  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	19. Ramen with Ritsuko

Outcast

  
  


19. Ramen with Ritsuko

  
  


The ramen vendor's demoiselle damselfly familiar landed on a ladle and neatly folded her laced wings.

"The soup's boiling," the daemon chirped at the beefy man.

"I know, I know," he replied.

Ikari Rei watched the large man move efficiently around his cart. Two clumps of noodles dropped into the boiling water. He turned the marinated pork and vegetable kebob cooking over the fragrant charcoal flame. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a full wok of vegetables cascading into the air and back again into the concave pan. His daemon took into the air as the cook stirred the steaming pot of soy-based broth.

The big vendor's surprisingly small hands ladled a measure of miso broth for tasting; the action took no longer than necessary. The noodles were ready just as the pork came off of the grill. Purposefully, the man ladled broth, inserted noodles, and then slid off the meat and vegetables from the bamboo skewer onto the bowl. He added a bit of seaweed and ginger to top it off. He prepared the vegetable ramen with the same efficiency. 

The vendor extracted a fistful of clean snow from a barrel and deposited it in into a tankard of frothy beer. An jade stream of tea poured into an earthenware bowl.

"One bowl of chashumen with extra pork," the vendor declared as he deposited down a steaming large bowl in front of Misato. "Beer. And one tanmen. Tea."

"Just hungry today," Misato said with a beguiling smile.

"No need to explain," he replied in his rough voice. "Two bowls are better than one."

When the ramen vendor had turned his back, Rei pulled the vegetable ramen and tea closer. The noodles were topped with stir-fried greens, strips of seaweed, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and some tofu. She pulled a pair of chopsticks and a broad headed china spoon from a pair of cups on the cart counter.

Pen-Pen tugged on the hem of Misato's coat, until the woman lifted the penguin daemon onto her lap. He nestled his feathered head into her coat; he gave a contented 'wark'. She reached around him to eat.

"How is it?" Misato asked Rei from the corner of her mouth.

"It is hot," Rei replied quietly.

"Right."

"Welcome!" the vendor announced heartily to a newcomer.

Rei did not recognize the woman in the black kimono. She turned her attention back to her bowl. She tried some tender bamboo shoot, pushed some of the fried vegetables aside to gain access to the noodles. Rei pulled up the a few noodles in a lift.

Misato hauled a mass of steaming noodles to her mouth. Her one-time guardian blew impatiently on the tangle. She led the mass into her mouth with a juicy chunk of pork at the tips of her chopsticks. The woman deposited the uneaten noodles back into the bowl, scattering droplets of broth onto the pine counter.

"One chashumen, extra pork, beer," Ritsuko ordered.

Misato stopped in mid-slurp. "Hiya, Ritsuko," she mumbled around a thick skein of noodles.

"Somehow, it seems appropriate for you to choose a ramen stand," Ritsuko said.

"Brings back old memories, doesn't it Ritsuko?"

"Try Sister Akagi."

"Congratulations! Your kimono looks sharp, unlike those wimples and habits that the elder sisters had to wear."

"It's an improvement," the nun responded. "Yes it does bring back memories."

Rei turned back to observe the vendor. She listened to the womens' conversation with half of an ear. The damselfly daemon's narrow blue body would suffer from the cold much like a normal insect. The graceful flyer hovered from spot to spot to bask in the heat without steaming her wings. The man still worked his cart in snow in spite of the cold. The cook's focus and lively mien reminded Rei of the way Shinji looked when he cooked. Whether plucking a downed pigeon or grinding barley to cut with the precious brown rice, Rei had learned that Shinji was content while cooking.

Rei tried to imagine if she and Shinji had a ramen cart to call their own. She thought of being able to work, to take in enough copper sen to eat white rice every night. To be seen in the day and not hide and scavenge. The idea of being noticed by the crowds upon crowds (dozens) of people sent a cold ripple down her spine. The thought set loose a butterfly in her stomach, yet it also invigorated her. Shinji would probably like being a vendor. But they did not have daemons; the image dispersed like the steam from the bowl in front of her. Rei turned her attention to draining the miso soup.

"Sister Joy asked why you never write," Ritisuko said. "Thank you," she told the vendor when she received her noodles.

"She'd love to hear about my work," Misato replied with a roll of her eyes. 

"Sister Joy always believed in forgiveness."

"And you don't."

"Not for you, no," Ritsuko quipped with her best poker-face. "You are quite beyond that."

"Touche," Misato announced. "So what have you been doing lately?"

"A little naval architecture, fluid mechanics, and research on Ruskatov particles."

"I see," Misato said. "So the last reason is why you wanted to see me."

"Partly, that comes later." 

"Ow!" Misato yelped.

"You always tried to drink the soup too early."

"Hot soup is the best part," Misato answered and downed a mouthful of snow cooled beer. It's better than drinking your soup cold."

Rei drank the hot soup down to the dregs. She belched appreciatively behind Misato and wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Misato absentmindedly handed the girl a handkerchief. Rei used it and then handed it back.

Ritsuko precisely tapped a morsel of barbequed pork three times against the side of the bowl before biting into it. "It never ceases to amaze me, how small things amuse you."

"Why not?" Misato said. She contemplated a shred of bamboo stalk on her chopstick. She dipped the stalk into her soup before eating it. "Happiness and hardship are not separated by much.

"How would you know warmth if you do not know cold," Misato continued. "Chill teaches us to clothe ourselves for warmth. Chill also taught us to enjoy a little bit of fire. It also makes us aware of the warmth of others."

"So how do the hardships of the clay define the pleasures of the mind and spirit?" Ritsuko challenged.

"What are the mind and spirit but extensions of the body?" Misato answered. "Thoughts are either turned toward finding ways to survive or upward away from the earth beneath our feet."

"So philosophy and religion are nothing but an escape or a distraction?"

"Sometimes, sometimes it is a way of climbing on a hill and looking at the lay of the land. The big view creates the big tools, take Master Confucius. He thought of reciprocity; a tool people use to live together."

"So you don't find it sad that theology, literature, experimental theology are nothing more than a hammer or a brightly colored piece of string?" Ritsuko pressed. 

"No, because happiness is just as real as hardship. If I have a decent job, and literature makes me happy, then 'Tale of Genji' does not have any less value than this beer, which makes me very happy."

Gulp, gulp. Misato slammed down the tankard and sighed with contentment. She wiped away beer froth with the back of her hand.

"I see that you still have it. Whether it's the hedonism or the ability to debate, I'm not sure."

"Whatever," Misato said. "I have the book with me, in town I mean."

"Have you read it yet?"

"The first few pages."

"So, no, you haven't."

Rei sipped her tea as the older women chatted. In spite of their sharp words and tones, their thoughts seemed calm to her second sight. Was that friendship? Her red eyes wandered to cat daemon that sat placidly in Ritsuko's lap. She observed that daemons' feeling reflected that of their human.

Rei wondered what it was like to have a daemon. That would mean that she would not be connected to Shinji. His face would be as inscrutable as the multitude of strange faces in the world. Shinji would become another stranger. Rei shivered at the thought. She wrapped her coat more tightly around herself.

The women plunked copper coins onto the narrow counter as they rose. 

"Have a good day, come again," the vendor called enthusiastically.

Misato deposited Pen-Pen onto the ground. The daemon waddled beside her. Ritsuko cradled her daemon in her arms. Rei followed Misato like a second shadow.

The crowd of people moved like a viscous liquid. Some invisible force clumped groups of strangers from each other by some tacit distance. The gazes of the pedestrians slid off from each other like water from smooth iron. Rei did not want to noticed, so she nudged other people's attention to skitter past her like a droplet on a hot skillet. It was a talent that she always had.

Rei scanned the crowd. It was a habit. To her second sight, they looked like a gray mass. A few outliers showed up as different colors. As the moments passed, a hundred individual patterns began to emerge from the hundred individuals minds in sight. Rei decided to focus on Misato's familiar back to push the bewildering panorama away.

As she began to turn, a bright form at the corner of her eye caught Rei's attention. A female form clothed in a white kimono walked past. The brightness was not from the whiteness of her clothes or face; it was as if a limelight followed and focused on her. The woman moved much like Rei did, in a small bubble unconsciously formed by shoppers and laborers who saw that she was there, but wandered around her. She seemed familiar to Rei, almost as if looking into a basin of water. Rei tugged on Misato's kimono and pointed at the illuminated woman.

"What is it?" Misato asked. "It's not polite to point, even if no one notices you."

"That woman," Rei said. She realized that Misato could not acknowledge the woman's presence. "Watch the tall mirror in that stall," Rei added.

"Which one?" Misato asked. The woman blinked and jumped as if jolted by an anabaric wave. "Ikari Yui?" Misato asked incredulously when she caught the reflection in the mirror. The woman's sharp eyes followed the luminous figure through the crowd. When they blinked; the apparition had vanished.

"Did you see what I just saw?" Misato murmured in wonder. Rei nodded.

"So that's where you went," Ritsuko stated tartly. "And who is this?" she ask looking directly at the albino girl.

  
  



	20. Brush Strokes

Outcasts  
  
20. Brush Strokes  
  
And Confucius said, "If a ruler should disobey Heaven, then Heaven shall turn against him", Shinji copied laboriously from a primer. He drew his classic kanji distinct stroke by stroke. He massaged his hand. It had been a while since he had written so much.  
  
"How are you doing, Shinji?" Sakura asked him as she appraised a sheet of her own work. Her canine daemon basked in a block of winter sunlight.  
  
"No complaints," he replied.  
  
"Shinji, would you mind talking?" she asked softly. The graceful young woman put down her brush and turned to him. She pulled her feet toward her body and wrapped her arms around her knees like a child.  
  
"No, not at all," he answered, laying down his brush as well. He knelt toward her. "What do you want to talk about?"  
  
"I have a question to ask you, an important one," she said.  
  
"Yes?" Shinji said expectantly.  
  
"Is there anything that I could do to, well-" she stalled. "To change your opinion of me?" she rushed, looking away.  
  
"Well, I'm not sure what you mean," Shinji said. "I guess not."  
  
"What I mean to say is that I have a secret."  
  
"I guess that I have one or two, too."  
  
"Probably not like mine though," she said flustered.  
  
"Oh," he said and fell silent.  
  
She turned back to the table and grasped her brush. She pulled out a scroll of paper. In a quick running hand, she painted fluid words onto the paper.  
  
"Shinji, I want to talk to you."  
  
She slid the scroll to Shinji. He read it and turned speak to her. He noticed that a faint blush had crept into her delicate complexion, matching her pink robes. She raised her brush upside-down to his lips, the cherry wood tip resting against the tip of her index finger. Shinji nodded and picked up his own writing instrument.  
  
"I want to talk to you, too," he wrote back in an informal and loose hand.  
  
She knelt next to him. Her shoulder was on the level of his ear. He could smell the sweet and light scent of cherry blossoms and a very faint bitter ash in her hair.  
  
"I am glad," she wrote hurriedly. "I am glad that you came here."  
  
"I am glad that I came, too."  
  
Before Sakura took her turn, she unwound the scroll several inches to the right. The ink had not yet fully dried from Shinji's last characters when she placed her brush to at top of the column to the left of Shinji's words.  
  
"Why are you going north? I know that Misato used to work for Lord Ikari," the bold kanji asked.  
  
"Because, it is one of my secrets."  
  
"Oh, you don't need to tell me if you don't want to."  
  
"It's okay. I trust you. The truth is, my name is Ikari Shinji."  
  
"Ikari," was repeated with a few flicks of the bristles. "Then you are the son of a lord."  
  
"I suppose. Misato told me that when I was a little kid, my father tested me. It was almost out of an old story. He put a toy sword, a brush, and a piece of gold before me."  
  
"Samurai, scholar, or merchant," interjected a larger and freer script.  
  
"Right, I took the coin and gave it to Rei."  
  
"That was nice of you."  
  
"He stalked from the room and never talked to me again. Until the letter that asked us to return."  
  
"So you're father is calling you home. Will you return to Edo?"  
  
"I can't imagine that Father wants me back."  
  
"So why call you?"  
  
"I'm not sure, but I wouldn't stay."  
  
"I am selfish, but I am glad. But what of Rei?"  
  
"Mistao tells me that he likes Rei better, but last time he abandoned us both. I don't see why he would want us, really."  
  
"That is sad. But, I want you, Shinji; I want you to stay near us," the rapidly drawn words said.  
  
"Thank you," the smaller brush solemnly replied.  
  
"Thank you for sharing your secret," flowed down the page in equally dark and composed characters.  
  
"I kept it for a silly reason, I thought that it was somehow my duty to keep silent about it. Duty to a father to abandoned us."  
  
"It doesn't sound silly to me. Duty is important. Now I feel as if I have to give you me secret as well, but I am not sure."  
  
"It's okay if you don't want to tell me."  
  
"But-" she wrote and trailed off. He leaned over, lightly brushing against her.  
  
"Really, it'll keep," he wrote.  
  
"Understood," she responded by brush stroke. "But here is a thought that I want to share with you and only you.  
  
"Three years."  
  
"I'm listening - reading."  
  
"I'm not finished yet. You are fourteen, aren't you?"  
  
"Yes, I believe so."  
  
"I am seventeen. Three years is not so long of a time. In three turnings - twelve seasons, you will be seventeen and I will be twenty. That is not so far apart, is it?"  
  
"No it isn't," the solid lines stated.  
  
"From today, I shall try to keep myself like a child, so that we may become adults together," cherry handle brush swept out formally.  
  
"Then I shall try to join you," followed the response.  
  
"IK-AR-I SHIN-JI," the fading hiragana sounded out. Hiragana, the lettering used for primers where the picture of the cherry tree had the symbolic sounds for SA-KUR-A written underneath. The simple and stark syllables spoke to an equal without the expected -kun or affectionate -chan.  
  
"Sakura," the reply began; the bristles hesitated, creating a small blot of wet sable.  
  
Hard cherry clicked against the hesitating brush. The bristles intercepted and intertwined briefly.  
  
"Sakura is fine," the second brush drew from the borrowed black ink.  
  
The interrupted brush was lifted and set aside. The half-child's fine-boned hand clasped over the woman's and guided her.  
  
The brush was recharged from shallow well. The boy's hand moved slowly as it deliberately slashed the first curving knife-like radical for the word 'I'. Silk and cotton rustled gently as the writers adjusted their bodies. Soft footsteps of a daemon padded close to the writers. Bare forearm touched bare forearm. Hand rested on hand rested on brush. The boy's hand moved so that the woman's could follow his direction; the woman's hand followed willingly. After a hesitating stroke, they moved as one, and the moist words glided onto the expanse of ivory paper.  
  
"I will wait for you."  
  
20.5 Hilt  
  
Shinji and Rei slept behind a screen. The room was quiet. A single candle broke the darkness. Misato decanted a measure of warm sake into the geisha's porcelain cup.  
  
Sakura's canine daemon lay next to his human, aware that she wanted his warmth.  
  
"And you met Lord Horaki in his chambers to plead for Shinji and Rei?" Misato asked her in a hushed tone. Pen-Pen sat quietly in her lap looking at the geisha.  
  
"Yes, he was polite and told me that it was serious matter, and that he would think on it."  
  
"And could he smell the ash on your hair?"  
  
Sakura's eyes widened in surprise. She grasped a lock of her hair to sniff it. The acrid smell was still evident. "I don't know," she replied truthfully.  
  
"Well don't cut it off," Misato said. "Keep in mind that I've have a sharper nose than most," Misato stated; it was not a boast.  
  
"His daemon was a dog," Sakura reported. "He could have smelled something."  
  
"All we can do is to wait and see. He was not our employer, he might not make the connection. Winter is here; fires abound in the cold," Misato replied. "I got the payment from an old friend," she said and slid five paper bundles. Each bundle was a cylinder with two sides flattened.  
  
Sakura picked up one of the heavy bundles and slid a delicate finger over the thick paper. Ten coins she counted. Five bundles of coin. Sakura felt the sudden urge to heft the mass into the night, instead she carefully replaced the money. A person could live comfortably for a full year in Edo for six of the coins.  
  
"Fifty ryo," she said. "Fifty pieces of gold, was that what the man's life was worth?"  
  
"No," Misato said. "That was what we could get. How do you feel?"  
  
"Awful," Sakura said. "Even worse than when I - when I was sullied."  
  
"That's not the right word, you've always made it harder on yourself," Misato chided her.  
  
"This time there is no right word," Sakura said tiredly. She sipped her sake and put her cup down. Her mind flitted briefly to the wrapped scroll, now encased in silk, secured in her trunk. "The grandson tried to get revenge on the Horaki girl."  
  
Sakura reached behind her and pulled a hilt from the sash of her kimono. She handed it to her mistress. "It broke, the blade was still too brittle," the young woman said dully.  
  
"Yes," Misato answered as she took the broken blade into her hand. The shard of lustrous auger alloy gleamed with the trappings of an oil slick. The sheen seemed strangely cold considering the golden candlelight. Sakura recharged the woman's cup. "There's been a change of plan, little sis.  
  
"You're coming north with us, before heading to Edo."  
  
"Why?" Sakura asked distractedly.  
  
"Our employers want to see your technique."  
  
"Reveal it?" Sakura asked in surprise. "But-"  
  
"One thousand ryo," Misato interrupted.  
  
"That means," Sakura stopped to consider the full implications.  
  
"Yes, you won't have to do it again and none of the others will ever need to go through this." 


	21. A Telegram for Suzuhara

Disclaimer: "Dark Materials Trilogy" and "Golden Compass" are the creations of Philip Pullman. Evangelion is the creation of Gainax.

Asuka was peeved. That pervert of a samurai, Suzuhara Touji, had the chutzpah to put his hands on her body and carry her away from the hall. Just because she was a little tipsy, the uncultured brute thought that he had the right to touch her and, worse yet, her daemon. The young noblewoman had caught a maid chatting about it with a hotel employee. Worse yet, the gossip had referred to her in the most unflattering of terms. Even the stunned looks on the servants' faces and the fervent apologies from the hotel manager did nothing to mollify the red haired girl.

Siegsmyrth was clamped tightly to her hawking gage with his powerful claws.

She stalked the hallway looking for Ibuki. Asuka wanted to take her mind off from the aggravating incident. At least yesterday had been exciting, she would have to get the story from Hikari later. Her roommate was at the police station with Shigeru Aoba, the older samurai.

A harried maid rapidly ascended the stairway; she was tailed by a small cat daemon. The maid knocked on the door to the room that Shigeru shared with the younger Suzuhara. There was no answer, though loud voices penetrated the oaken door. The Deutsch girl cleared her throat. Asuka recognized the hotel servant as the same cross-eyed teen who had been gossiping about her. The baroness loudly cleared her throat. The maid jumped.

She bowed rapidly. "Good morning, are you with the Horaki party?" she asked nerviously.

"Yes," Asuka answered imperiously.

"I have a telegram for them, but no one is answering the door," the maid said, stumbling over her words.

"I'll take it," Asuka said.

"Thank you very much," the girl replied. She handed Asuka an sheet of onionskin thin paper, bowed, and bolted for the stair. Her feline daemon sprinted to catch up.

"Wait up!" the daemon yowled after her.

Asuka unfolded the translucent page and read.

21. A Telegram for Suzuhara

Touji sat cross legged and bare chested in the middle of the room. Underneath him were several towels. Four squares of mats had been moved aside to bare the wooden floor. His father knelt behind him holding a straight razor. A basin of water sat nearby. A strange bear-dog hybrid daemon and a lupine daemon sun bathed in separate pools of light.

"Don't worry, son," the elder Suzuhara said with a thick Osakan accent. "I've done this plenty of times." 

"Dad," Touji groused. "It's not the shaving that bothers me, it's just that it seems so incredibly pointless!"

"You desecrated the shrine, you have to atone for it."

"We were at the stairs NEAR the shrine."

"Still spilling blood before the Buddha is still bad for the karma, you have to do what's right," the burly bald man declared. "Stop trying to confuse the issue."

"Seeing as how I'm sending myself to the bone heaps of Yomi soon, I don't see why I need to go there bald."

"It's not the baldness that counts, it's the sentiment. I can't let you be there with that weighing on your conscious. What would your mother think?"

"Fine, fine," Touji said. "Just get it over with."

"That's my boy," the older Suzuhara said. The old man wet down his son's hair and began to lather it with a bar of soap.

Three knocks sounded at the door. They ignored it. Several damp locks of hair fell to the towel. A few seconds later, insistent knocks followed.

"Come in," Suzuahara the Greater yelled through the door.

The Western style door swung open to admit Asuka into the room.

"Baroness," the bald man said as he continued to shave Touji's head. "Good morning."

"Good morning," Asuka said sweetly. She left the door open a quarter of the way; she was a maiden in the presence of men after all. Siegsmyrth launched off her arm and perched onto a bar projecting from the wall. Asuka settled against the wall next to the door with her hands crossed like a butterfly behind her back. She closed the oaken door halfway. Besides the tatami mats, she could have stood in a hotel room in London.

"Do we need an audience, Dad?" the boy asked petulantly. His daemon bared her long teeth at the young baroness.

"What are you talking about? This is an act of penance. The Baroness probably has never seen this before, have you?"

"No, Mr. Suzuhara."

"See, you'll be educating by example," the older man declared expansively as he continued to shave.

"Whatever," Touji responded.

"You look funny," Asuka commented. The half bald sixteen year old gritted his teeth, and his daemon twitched.

"That's part of the point," the elder Suzuhara said. "But then again, he just hasn't gotten used to of it. Not that he will get the chance."

"You don't have to rub it in," Touji said in a surly tone.

"That's the truth boy, you should never flinch from the truth. First tenet of Kisetsufu-budo."

"Kisetsufu-budo?" Asuka asked.

"The Horaki method of war, Winds of the Seasons. The founder of the method, the honorable Horaki Hayako, believed in change, continuous change"

"Hayako? Sounds like a woman's name."

"She was," the sinewy older man answered. "There," he said as he toweled off Touji's clean shaven head.

"Like father, like son," Asuka gushed.

"Well, now," the older samurai said with a grin. He scratched the side of his mouth with his right finger. His son looked far less happy with it. "Okay, enough dawdling boy, here's your daisho. Sure, you're alright with your letter?"

Touji took the sheathed blades from the old man. "Yeah, old man," the boy said. "I apologized to Lord Horaki and Lady Hikari for my failures and hope to restore honor back to the Suzuhara name.

"Now, can I have some privacy?" he asked brusquely.

"I just want to make sure you do it right, son."

"I mean her," Touji snapped, pointing at Asuka.

"It's not polite to point," Asuka stated tartly. "Are you doing to take all day?"

"She's right on both counts, son. You should show proper respect to those above you. And you need to be more manly about these things, do them right and do them right away."

"Are you planning to lecture me until the end?" Touji groused under his breath.

"Son, I just wanted to say this: you aren't the smartest or the fastest or the most obedient boy, but you're still my boy. That's why I'll lecture you until the end," his father answered piously. "Now get on with it. Is your sword sharp enough? There's nothing more embarrassing than a botched seppuku."

"Yeah it's plenty sharp," Touji said. He took several deep breaths to compose himself and wrenched the bright katana from it's scabbard in one smooth pull. He placed the keen blade to his left. "Shina," he called.

His primordial daemon ambulated to her human and laid on her side before him. She bared her belly to him. The samurai drew his wakizashi and placed the edge against her vulnerable belly.

Asuka sighed and cleared her throat to speak. She brought forth the folded telegram in her right hand. A hand knocked at the door. The well balanced portal swung open on well oiled hinges to show Hikari standing in the hallway. The girl's expression rapidly shifted from tired to stunned.

"What are you doing!" Hikari shouted. The girl rushed forward and tackled his right arm. There was the distinct clank of mail at impact. Touji yelped in pain. Shigeru was half a step behind and dove for his left. The lank samurai had wrapped his arm around the boy's arm and throat. 

"No, wait!" his father shouted. "Touji, you've got to finish what you started!"

"No, Touji! Don't, I'm so sorry," Hikari yelled as she tried to pin the struggling samurai.

"You must report to Lord Horaki, first," Shigeru shouted into his ear.

Two shapes blurred into the room as Asuka cleared her throat loudly.

"Lord Horaki has a message for you!" she screamed above the ruckus.

They all froze in mid-struggle and turned to her.

"START RECEIVED SHIGERU REPORT STOP SUZUHARA LESSER NO SEPPUKU FOR YOU STOP YOU MUST PROTECT HIKARI UNTIL SHE IS READY STOP THAT IS AN ORDER STOP LORD HORAKI END," Asuka read.

"I don't know why don't you use hiragana all the time, it's so much easier to read than kanji.

"What?" Asuka asked innocently. Eight blank stares from four humans and four daemons focused on her.

The red haired girl was rescued by a knock at the open door.

*****

"Excuse me," the shriveled monk asked at the door. His gray tanuki daemon waddled in after him. An unflappable male servant followed him.

"Hello, Uncle," Hikari said. He was the same monk from the dueling site.

"My, you youngsters are awfully feisty these days," the old man quavered.

Hikari looked at the bare chest young man she was draped over; she blushed. "Are you still going to kill yourself?" she asked Touji.

"No, not right now," Touji answered.

She relinquished her hold on his right arm. Shigeru let go of his left. Touji retrieved a kicked scabbard. He picked one of the towels and cleaned of the grease his hand had left on the blade and then sheathed the katana. An ugly bruise formed on his left side.

"Please join us," Hikari said to the monk, who bowed and entered.

"Excuse me," the girl said to the servant. "Would you mind bringing some refreshments?"

"Very good, madam," the servant said. He bowed precisely and left.

"How is the youngster from yesterday?" the monk asked.

"Fukugawa Chomei? He will live," Hikari answered as she joined the group. "The bloodmoss worked well."

Asuka had drifted over to the group. They shuffled themselves into a rough circle.

"Bloodmoss doesn't grow around here," Asuka commented with a furrowed brow. "And it can only be used fresh."

"Usually," Hikari said. "This sample developed by Miss Akagi. That was what the instructions said."

"I thought that I would have to consign his soul to the Buddha," the monk said. "This bloodmoss is a wondrous thing. In some ways, you are the image of her." 

"Who?" Hikari asked.

"A woman of extravagant methods. A woman who would have defended her honor as fiercely and then work as fiercely to save her opponent's life. Hayako Horaki, the woman who cursed the world with the black ossein bow."


	22. All Aboard

Disclaimer: "Dark Materials Trilogy" and "Golden Compass" are the creations of Philip Pullman. Evangelion is the creation of Gainax.

Outcasts

22. All Aboard

Touji sweated and steamed under the dew rag bound over his shaven pate. He leaned over the crate that he had been carrying and blew out a long stream of mist.

Heat, that's one advantage of being bald, he thought. Even his daemon had been pressed into service. He had tied a harness around Shina's shoulders to drag another of the baroness's trunks. 

"What's taking so long, you oaf!" Asuka's voice rang from behind him. She kept her hands wrapped in a warm muffler. The young baroness had been at it all morning.

With a sigh, the beleaguered samurai heaved the burden back into his arms.

Several cars down, Shinji shook his head at the scene.

Gah, how scary, Shinji thought as he walked into the austere sleeper car. I'm so glad that I don't need to deal with that.

He closed the billeted steel door behind him. The walls were made from the same riveted metal. The room only took up half the car. A solid steel wall separated their car from the adjacent one. 

He was carrying a burlap bag over his shoulder. Two bunk beds and two benches were the only furnishings. Shinji flipped to top of one of the benches open and stowed his bag next to Rei's. They secured the Misato's and Sakura's trunks that underneath the bottom bunks with rope.

He and Rei had the top bunks, since they did not need to help daemons up the ladders. Rei sat on Sakura's bunk with the young woman. Sakura's golden canine daemon lay with his paws over his ears. They clicked rhythmically at each other in the strange language of the goblin spiders. Sakura had heard Kaji's tale of being rescued from the spiders by a girl's ghost. The young woman had made the connection and asked Rei to teach her the language.

"Welcome back," Sakura said.

"Welcome," Rei said.  
"Glad to be back," Shinji answered. "Good afternoon, Misato?"

Misato was flipping through a leather bound book with a frown on her face. Pen-Pen sat on her crossed legs and wrapped a string around her big toes. Misato took no notice of her daemon's activities. She wasn't reading one of her usual pulp romance novels and seemed to be deep in concentration. Shinji decided not to bother her as climbed over her into his spot.

Sister Akagi Ritsuko handed her binoculars to a crimson and sable clad Ikari guard. The masked samurai silently took the device.

The pawns are in place, she noted mentally. If they are pawns, what does that make you? she asked herself. She tried to ignore her own question as she turned away from the soot coated window to board the train.

*****

Hikari whispered an apology to Touji. When he had asked her if she needed any help loading her baggage, Hikari had taken the opportunity to ask Asuka if the Deutcsh girl wanted any extra help. Her friend had gleefully accepted. His predicament gave her time to talk with Shigeru privately; the quiet samurai spoke more openly one to one. She needed advice. When she closed her eyes at night, she saw the broken body of the ronin. The sight of her childhood friend preparing for ritual suicide had chilled her to the core. She had already killed once and nearly gotten Suzuhara killed as well. Hikari never treated her position as a game, but the past two days had illustrated how deadly serious her responsibilities could be.

Hikari knocked on the open door to the car. Inside, Shigeru Aoba poured over maps and other documents. He had an abacus in one hand. His fox daemon bent his forelegs to bow a welcome to her.

"Lady Hikari," the lanky samurai said. "Please come in."

"Thank you, Shigeru," Hikari said and sat across the table from him. Closer, she could see that the warrior was making budgets for their travels. There were printed travel brochures in Spanish and English and two dictionaries spread before him. "Shigeru, I wanted to talk to you," she knew him well enough not to mince words.

"I will try my best to help you," he replied as he put down the counting board.

"Thank you," Hikari said solemnly. "Do you believe that my father knew about the bow."  
"How did you receive the bow?" he asked. "I have not had to honor to hear the tale."

"My father gave it to me to overcome my fear of storm," she admitted. " I suppose that he believed that the ability to make thunder would alleviate my fear of thunder."  
"And was he right?"

"Yes."

"It was evident that Lord Horaki knew of some of the properties of the bow," Shigeru said. "For him to be ignorant of it's history would seem unlikely."  
"I am not sure why I did not know about something so valuable in the family," Hikari mused.  
"It was probably the same reasons why we did not know about the stories that the monk had told us."  
Hikari recalled the stories that the monk had related about Horaki Hayako the day before. Her ancestress had eliminated an enemy clan to a man in the name of justice. That family's name was lost to history. Perhaps our divine punishment it to suffer the same fate, she wondered briefly.

"Lady Hikari," the samurai said in his placid voice. "I do not know why Lord Horaki gave you the ossein bow, but his telegram did say 'until she is ready'. In any case, he trusts you to do the right thing. It is a heavy responsibility. I hope that Suzuhara the Lesser and I can help you carry it."

"Thank you," she replied sincerely.

The train whistle blasted three times in the distance.

"You should get to your car before the train starts moving, I'll see you out," Shigeru said kindly and arose.

Hikari rose as well. She was glad at of his words of encouragement, but she also realized that his life was another of her responsibilities.

Note: This document was created with AbiWord for Windows XP.


	23. The Golden Compass

Disclaimer: This fanfiction is based on "His Dark Materials" or "Evangelion", which are the property of their respective owners.  
  
Outcasts  
  
23. The Golden Compass  
  
Clouds. Layer upon layer of white clouds loafed across the intensely blue sky, casting deep shadows over the landscape. Rei recognized the dream as a memory from two summers before. Shinji lay next to her on a hillside that overlooked the overgrown grounds of an abandoned fort.  
  
Rei only saw amorphous masses of vapor, until Shinji pointed to a sweep of clouds that pinched at one end like a neck and dragged along five trails. The boy called forth a swift horsemen and her red eyes saw it. He called forth secluded village and a dancing carp. A bear climbed a tree until it was skewed by brisk winds until it bent over to run like a boar. A stick-thin hunter threatened his prey with a crooked spear. A heron flying nearby was split up the middle into doughy white clumps and parted to reveal a billowing mass above it. Shinji saw an umbrella clutched by a womanish figure. Rei squinted her eyes for a moment and clearly saw that the umbrella could be a lily pad and the shaft of the umbrella and the vaguely feminine blot could be a frog at the launching himself from the pad.  
  
He? Shinji had asked.  
  
That's what he is, Rei had replied.  
  
Shinji smiled at her as a merciless shaft of sunlight leaked between the clouds. The powerful light made her wince.  
  
Rei opened her eyes to an unexpected brightness. She froze when she saw a familiar face leaning over her with a familiar sad expression. The white apparition of her mother brushed Rei's cheek with a cool airy hand. The girl let out a small gasp of surprise. In a blink, the apparition evaporated into motes of pale bluish-white light. A second blink left Rei in a deep darkness. Her eyes adjusted to the dark. Unconsciously, she clasped her hand over her cheek. The splash of chill slowly evaporated.  
  
The sleepers and their daemons around her breathed gently. She felt as if a part of her senses still slept. Rei looked around and saw that Shinji continued to sleep, though she was awake.  
  
Before she could contemplate the situation further, golden candle's flame glowed against the shoji screens. A robed figure lurked at the door, casting a contorted black shadow. He was followed by a bulky humanoid who carried a sheathed daisho. Rei rose from her bedding and cracked open the door to see Ikari Gendou towering over her. An oni masked samurai carried a lantern on a short pole. His wolf daemon sniffed suspiciously at the girl. The imposing man turned and walked down the hallway. Rei quietly closed the door and followed her father into the darkness.  
  
*****  
  
The room was opulently furnished. Silk screens coraled in the heat from the crackling wood stove. Rei sat on a plush divan. A mahogany table separated her from her father; a go set sat on the table. Rei set a white stone onto the three-quarters filled board. It was the same board that her father taught her the game on. Rei lifted her cup of gyokuro tea to enjoy the aroma of the drink. It felt like a dream to her.  
  
Ikari Gendou sternly scoured the board through his spectacles to find a move. The girl followed his gaze; it paused briefly at a move that would have led to devastating encirclement a few turns later. Instead, the stone landed at a less offensive position. Rei stifled a yawn.  
  
"Are you tired?" the man asked.  
  
"A little," the girl admitted.  
  
Carefully, his large hands set aside the board. The turns were preserved.  
  
"Rei, I want to you to have something."  
  
Rei nodded. The man reached into his kimono and drew out a shell of dull metal that resembled a station watch. The surface seemed to be dull and pitted. The man's serpent daemon was wrapped around the same limb. The serpent flicked her forked tongue at the girl. Rei reached for the object at a low angle to avoid touching the serpent. As her fingers lifted the watch-like device, the metal shimmered as if washed with desert heat.  
  
The device solidified into a golden disc; it fit neatly and heavily in her palm. Rei opened the disc to reveal face of polished crystal. The surface reflected her red eyes. Three ornate clock arms radiated from an axis. The perimeter was precisely divided into thirty-six divisions. Each division held a picture that was identifiable by its shape. Each shape was drawn in fine strokes that suggested the primordial ancestor of the equivalent modern kanji. Three small knobs interrupted the smooth perimeter.  
  
"This is an alethiometer. It was the seventh built. It is an improvement on the other symbol readers. It answers questions.  
  
"See if you can use it," Gendou urged.  
  
Rei nodded. She focused herself; she no longer felt tired. By reflex, she hooked her hair behind her ears. It was a moment of eerie recognition for Ikari Gendou who had seen his wife use the same motion time and again.  
  
The girl studied each symbol in turn. Some were unrecognizable, but the images suggested words that sat at the tip of her tongue. There were the symbols for the merciless sun, the crescent moon, and a drawing compass. Rei could identify the mother, babe, and apple. The bitten fruit invoked a feeling of dread, the fear of a child facing punishment. A red and angry word flashed through her mind: transgression. The carved character faded into softer lines and drifted apart. A different sensation teased her mouth as the dread left her. Rei tasted a tart and crisp morsel of an apple; a memory of the first time that her mother had fed her a slice of the fruit. It had been a new sensation, knowledge gained.  
  
Rei turned one of the knobs and rotated the broad hour hand over the apple that now reminded her of knowledge. She scanned the thirty-five other shapes and moved the minute hand to the compass. The seconds hand settled over the candle, which brought the idea of learning to her mind. Her motions were guided by a newfound intuition. The golden compass lay still for a moment before moving.  
  
The hands rotated and moved in a rapid dance. To her surprise, Rei could understand the swift motions. Like the clouds of that summer day, each image gave different impressions. The shapes reshaped into different concepts, nuances, and references. The sun was the harsh and brutal fire in the sky before it transformed into the mighty sun goddess.  
  
Eventually, the instrument revealed that it was a messenger (hour hand on the angel) of mysteries (the minute hand over the moon) on all the subjects (a sweep of the face by the seconds needle). Impressions revealed themselves in layer upon layer as the seconds hand made another sweep around the faces. Words and images separated and reformed. The needles began moving around again in apparently random trajectories. The impressions appeared in different sequences as the arms danced in different patterns.  
  
One sequence was a copy of the first pattern that she had set. The compass held it briefly, and then the arms spun counterclockwise: the hours hand to the crucible, the minutes stayed at the apple, and the seconds to the compass. The compass had just refined the indistinct question from a general "How does this device (compass) bring knowledge (candle + apple) ?" to roughly "How do I distill (crucible) knowledge (apple) systematically (compass)?" The counterclockwise motion signaled "not this" as in "not this, but that". The arms continued their dizzying dance.  
  
Rei realized that the samples were parts of a lesson in a new language. The symbol reader lead her through its intricate vocabulary, grammar, and syntax. It could not be spoken like Nipponese, but it was not as well defined as math either. The symbol language hung somewhere between.  
  
Rei could not tell how long she stared at the symbols, but her neck stiffened and her legs grew numb. Slowly, her eyes drooped close. The pale girl fell asleep clutching the instrument; its arms continued to slide and move. Ikari Gendou rose to gently compose the girl on the divan. He carried a blanket from another chair and settled it over the child. The man blinked his bloodshot eyes and indulged himself with another glance at the girl before leaving the room. Morning had arisen.  
  
Sister Akagi waited for him in the hallway. She carried a clipboard under her black clad arm.  
  
"The preparations for the test are nearly complete," she announced crisply. "How did it go?"  
  
"The golden compass has responded to her," he answered.  
  
Reference: geocities.com/darkadamant/ 


	24. The Calm Before

Disclaimer: "Dark Materials Trilogy" and "Golden Compass" are the creations of Philip Pullman. Evangelion is the creation of Gainax.  
  
Shinji awoke with a start. The boy propped himself up on an arm. He had dreamt that Rei had arisen as he slept and followed their aloof father into the night. The boy shook the impossible image out of his head. As children, one had unsuccessfully tried stay awake while the other was asleep. He looked around. He was startled to find that she was gone. The night suddenly felt colder; he could not feel where she was. Shinji was almost sure that she wasn't hurt. He was usually able to feel her pain. Tonight, he wasn't sure. He wrapped himself tightly in his bedding.  
  
Sakura slept peacefully within arm's reach. Her daemon curled up on top of her futon. Shinji touched her face gently. He decided not to disturb her. Misato read behind a screen by candlelight, like each of the past four nights spent at the castle. Pen-Pen sat with his back to the screen. He decided not to disturb Misato. Dragging the quilt behind him, he navigated around the ember glow of the fire and around a silk screen to the window. He cracked open the shutters to gaze onto the castle grounds.   
  
His breath became plumes of white vapor. In the quiet, he imagined he could hear the distant rush of the rivers that surrounded the stone fortress. An entire river had been diverted to protect Castle Ikari. Earthworks, dikes, masonry walls, and even the houses were arranged in successive strands. Sparse lights could be seen in the sparsely populated villages.   
  
Above, the stars shined brightly, and the moon was a silver half disc. Unconsciously, his right hand strayed to the cross around his chest.   
  
Could she be up there? he wondered. What was up there? Would I go there? Rei? Misato? Sakura?  
  
He shuddered at the thought. Ichimonji was widowed, what would happen to Sakura if - he cut off the thought as bile began to creep into his throat. He pulled out the small silver cross and studied it in the wan moonlight. The gleaming metal looked so different from the organic lines of his hands or the roughness of wood.  
  
He had not noticed that the bedding had fallen from his shoulders into a pool around him. To his surprise, warmth enveloped him from behind. A familiar scent enveloped him as Misato threw her quilt around his shoulders and drew him near to share the blanket.  
  
"It was a small smile, but an honest smile nonetheless," the woman said into his ear.  
  
"Sakura?"  
  
"Who else? What have you done for me lately?"  
  
"What about the mushrooms?"  
  
"That was ages ago," she joked. "But I wanted to show you something."  
  
Shinji shifted and turned as Misato reached for the collar of her kimono. Her hand dipped inside and pulled forth a stocky cross of ivory. She held it next to his cross.  
  
"My father gave it to me. It's a weight that I carry."  
  
Shinji nodded.  
  
"You have to carry yours too, not only for your sake, but for her sake, too."  
  
Shinji opened his mouth, but Misato interrupted him.  
  
"I'm not finished yet.  
  
"She has her own burdens to bear. I've rarely seen her smile honestly. A woman at her station can hope for nothing better than a rich lover. She had that. She gave that up. So Shinji, please remember to be kind to her."  
  
He nodded. Embraced in her warmth against the cold and still night, he felt that it was true.  
  
"I will remember," he agreed.  
  
Outcasts   
  
24. The Calm Before  
  
Hikari's weight was on her right trailing foot. Her leading foot carried only its own weight. She leaned forward slightly in the stance. The hilt was at stomach level and tip of the bamboo sword angled to the level of her bound chest. Rivulets of cold sweat ran down her back. She felt warm under the kimono and hakama pants, though her breath was issued in clouds. She had been practicing the kata since dawn and managed to imprint most of the motions into her sore muscles. Yoshi-hiko had all of his positions down pat.   
  
She opened the kata with a retreating step and a sweeping parry to her left. Yoshi-hiko turned to watch her back. Leading with her right foot, Hikari slashed right with an explosive "ell!" scream, cutting at the leading leg of an imaginary foe. Her daemon flitted counterclockwise with the blow to keep under the guard of her blade. In her mind, the first enemy surged forth after the parry. In response, she followed her momentum two steps toward the downed foe. She struck down sharply to finish him off. Hikari pivoted and turned toward her first attacker. She carried the momentum of the turn into a high parry. A swift kick to an imaginary daemon followed. The striking foot withdrew to a neutral stance. Taking advantage of the stunned samurai, she slashed a disemboweling blow. Her high pitched scream echoed between the evergreen trees and shrubs, the distant stone walls, and up to the gray morning sky.  
  
Hikari swung the length of bamboo in a loose figure eight and craned her neck to stretch out as she returned to her opening stance.  
  
"Okay," Shigeru said. "I think that's enough for right now."  
  
Several hundred paces away, a flock of small yellow-faced birds started into the sky. Their wings flapped desolately in the quiet; their trills small and distant. Hikari instinctively fell to one knee with her practice sword ready. Yoshi-hiko scampered to her side to keep watch at her back. A tingle ran up her spine to the small hairs at the neck of her neck.  
  
"What-" the samurai began to ask just as the solid earth began to quake.  
  
The ground lurched sickeningly sideways as inertia held them from moving with the ground. Hikari shot out her left hand into the trampled snow to maintain balance. Shigeru widened his stance and rode the jittering ground. The earth let out a deep rumble as the air vibrated. A tree tore from its roots, clashing and clawing at its fellows on the way down. The brush shivered and hissed as they shook. In the distance, an avalanche of stone roared and rumbled.  
  
As suddenly as it began, the quake stopped.  
  
A sharp slap resounded from around the corner. A miffed red-head soon followed. She was dressed in her heavy fur robes and bearing her falcon daemon.  
  
"You were gonna fall!" Touji complained after he stepped into view.   
  
"Hah, likely story," Asuka dismissed. "That quake was sudden," she declared.  
  
"Are you okay?" Touji asked.  
  
"I'm fine, not thanks to you," Asuka said.  
  
"I am unhurt," Shigeru said.  
  
"I'm fine," Hikari replied as she rose to her feet. She swept a sweat sodden lock from her eyes. "And you?"  
  
"My cheek stings," Touji said holding his left cheek. His daemon rose up on her hind legs to lick it. "Oh, stop it," he said.  
  
"You deserved it," Asuka declared. "Was it you?" she asked Hikari.  
  
"No," Hikari answered. "Not this time."  
  
A siren began to wail in the distance.  
  
24.5 That Same Morning  
  
Shinji awoke again with Misato's lilac quilt draped around him. There was still no Rei. Her absence left a creepy feeling crawling through him. Every time he turned around, he expected her white form to be there. Sakura had also left. Her futon was neatly folded and stacked to the side of the room. Someone had closed the window.  
  
Shinji rose. He folded and dragged the bedding next to Sakura's. Shinji neatened Rei's quilts as well. He pulled his bag out of the closet from under Rei's and laid out a fresh kimono. He washed his face, rinsed his mouth, and changed before leaving the room. He carried his wooden sandals across the back of his neck by the laces.  
  
He followed the long hallway past empty rooms. A turn in the corridor led to an older wing. Daylight entered from dirty overhead windows. A left-hand turn entered into a hall filled with a hundred and more mirrors. The silvered lenses came in ovals, triangles, squares, rhombii, and polygons of all proportions. One mobius strip sat at the center of the room. The mirrors flattened, stretched, and distorted his image. None of them held a true reflection, though they repeated his image an infinite number of times in blurred reflection trapped in other reflections. As a small child, Shinji came here often to avoid servants, most of whom found the hall eerie.  
  
Shinji tied on his sandal before the he took a stairway closeted in the corner of the room. The hewn steps led to a tunnel, which opened into a damp cavern lit by phosphorescent moss. A faint breezed wandered with a hollow sound through the massive chamber. Droplets of hard water slid down the stalactites to the waiting stalagmites. Another tunnel graded to the surface to lead near a bathroom. The tatami mats had been removed from wing. He thumped across the bare dusty wood, until he found an old bedroom which contained a passage that led directly to the kitchen. A table had been placed in front of the concealed door. The boy crawled below the table to find himself in the unmanned scullery.   
  
The din of metal, raised voices, and pounding feet were deafening. Steam rose in clouds into the sweltering air. Neither persons nor daemons took notice of Shinji as he walked past the bustling servants to a trough of hot water. He thoroughly washed his hands with rough soap. The boy made a beeline to a sturdy table were terracotta pots of cooked rice cooled. He reached his skinny arm into one of the pots and squeezed a tennis ball sized globe of rice for his breakfast. A pair of pickled plums from an earthenware jar completed the meal. He exited by the front doorway along with a troop of exiting servants who split up at the main courtyard.  
  
He left the bustling servants to follow a side path over a crenelated wall. As he walked, the chewed on the pickled plums and spat out the stone off the walkway. He followed the plums with the rice ball. As he licked the last grain his fingers, the paving stones led to an arch where the white path began. Shinji crossed the threshold.  
  
The hedge maze and flower garden had been flattened, leaving bare earth. The gazebo was porous with dry rot. Shinji gouged out several fingers of wood. He left the ruined garden behind, dusting off his hand. The white path led to a house of glass and steel. Grime caked the once gleaming structure.   
  
Holes had been broke in the ceiling; bird droppings and feathers littered the ground, but the clockwork ground on, transferring their motions through a multitude of cogs, wheels, cranks, screws, and shafts. Several sections had broken down, but the rest ran the same as it always did. Magnificent clocks kept time down to the thousandth of a second. Armies of miniature men skated on rails over green metal. They were joined by dancing ladies in foreign dress. Articulated arms disassembled and reassembled the other machines and each other. All of them were powered by yard long arms spinning on the roof; they ended in black and white panels that caught and reflected the sunlight. The miniscule energy transferred through nearly frictionless bearings throughout the machine hall. All of it had been designed by his mother.  
  
In the center, was Ikari Yui's prized and last mechanical creation.  
  
The pedestal came up to his the top of his stomach. He remembered it being higher. The glass case was empty. Finger wide trails broke the coating of grime. The golden compass was gone.  
  
He felt a presence; it felt like Rei at the entrance. Shinji turned. Surprise jolted through him. In her hands, the woman held the small gold disc. The angle of the light had cloaked her in shadows. For a moment, he thought that he had seen his mother again. Rei took a step forward, and he saw that it was his sister, ghost pale and red eyed as usual. He was approaching her, to make sure that she was solid and truly there, when the ground began to tremble.  
  
The earth listed and rumbled like a an unimaginably enormous cauldron. Shinji ran out of the building as a section of machinery came loose and smashed into thousands of pieces. Panes of glass fell around him and shattered into jagged shrapnel. Rei stepped back out of the building. She pitched against her brother as he emerged from the building. A distant bridge collapsed, hurling up a plume of dust. The shaking stopped just as it had started.  
  
"What was that?" Shinji asked as he held his sister.  
  
Rei lifted the golden compass and rapidly set its arms to the Tree, the Thunderbolt, and the Compass. The arms spun out their answer in moments. He looked on curiously.  
  
"Sakura," Rei said. "She's on the far side of the main wall," she added.  
  
Shinji took her open hand, and they began running to the epicenter of the quake. 


	25. A Demonstration of Force

Dawn rose as Shinji continued to sleep by the window sill. Sakura pulled her hand away from the slumberer. A thin line of drool ran from the corner of his chin. Her daemon moved forward to wake the boy, but his human restrained him with a light touch.  
  
"Please don't," Sakura said. "I'm not sure."  
  
"If we don't, we'll probably regret it. If we were him, would we want to know?"  
  
She probably would, but she was afraid of what he would say, what he would do.  
  
"So when?" Bao-Er, her daemon, demanded. "This is unlike you."  
  
"I don't know," Sakura answered. She felt pulled into two.  
  
A light knocking at the door summoned her. The young woman closed the window before answering the door. A masked Ikari guard waited for her with his spear poised and ready. His wolf daemon looked hungry and powerful. Sakura exited the room and reluctantly closed the door behind them.  
  
"We'll just have to live with it," the daemon said dubiously.  
  
"Yes, all three of us," she said firmly as she followed the guard. "Three of us."  
  
Outcasts  
  
25. A Demonstration of Force  
  
The cavern was a rough oval that measured at least a hundred yards by twenty-five yards. An incongruous masonry wall had been raised over the narrow face. Snow had been brought in by the wheel barrel and piled up near the wall.The air was cold. Pen-Pen ran and then slid belly first in the cold whiteness.   
  
The space was lit by beams of harsh lime light. The sounds of the set-up crew rebounded and reverberated from the walls.  
  
Misato inspected the ground for evenness. Two hip high shafts of steel had been driven into the ground; each ended at a ring, which was the size of a loosely curled hand. Each shaft was secured to the stone. Wooden barricades were positioned around the room. Behind some of the sodden lumber walls, photogram machines were pointed at the shaft and the stone wall. Ikari guards and Ritsuko's raven clad assistants milled about. Misato had not seen so much black clothing since she had been at school.  
  
"Wear this," Ritsuko said, handing Misato a pair of smoked glasses. The nun's daemon carefully picked her way over the hewn ground.  
  
"Is all of this really necessary?" Misato asked.  
  
"There isn't anywhere for the heat to escape," Ritsuko answered as she checked her clipboard. "This is just a precaution."  
  
"And the guards?" Misato questioned as she craned her neck in her direction.  
  
"Another precaution. By the way, you might want to get your daemon out of the firing range."  
  
"Sakura isn't here yet."  
  
"So she's inherited your habits."  
  
"She isn't usually like this."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
"So why do you want to learn about this?"  
  
"Theological curiosity."  
  
"Right. I think that I know Lord Ikari too well to buy that one."  
  
"Why should you care?" Ritsuko answered. "You're getting paid for this, very well paid."  
  
"Personal curiosity."  
  
"Fair enough," Ritsuko said. She raised her voice to address her raven clad assistants. "Okay, final checks, everyone!"   
  
She strode away from Misato. Misato saw the younger woman enter behind a red armored guard. As she crossed the room, she noticed that Sakura's shoulders drooped.  
  
"You've got to focus yourself," Misato hissed to her.  
  
"I know," Sakura answered. Her lip curled slightly as a young nun approached with a tray. On the tray was a blade with a silver sheen and four ball-bearings made of the same material. A pair of smoked spectacles were also offered. Sakura cleared the contents of the tray. The blade slipped into a waiting sheath in the back of her sash. The spheres were deposited in a leather slot on the left of her sash. "What is it?" she asked the nun coolly. Wordlessly, the nun bowed and withdrew.  
  
"Get a grip on yourself," Misato ordered.  
  
"Sorry," Sakura said. "I just don't like them."  
  
"Don't let that distract you."  
  
"Understood," Sakura said.  
  
"Note the location of the sections of wall."  
  
Sakura looked around and nodded.  
  
"Listen," Misato added. "I have a bad feeling about this. Don't relax after you're done with the test. Get away and get ready afterwards."  
  
"What are you expecting?" Sakura whispered.  
  
"I'm not sure, but why else would twenty of the Nameless be needed?"  
  
"We can't fight them," Sakura replied eyeing the red armored samurai.  
  
"It's not that," Misato said. "We're still useful to them, even after this test."  
  
"You're here!" Ritsuko said. "Good, we can get started once the test subject arrives. He should be here shortly."  
  
The nun wore a pair of the round smoke lenses. Misato donned her pair.   
  
"The test subject was a serial murderer in Sapporo," Ritsuko continued. "He killed eight boys over the past six years. He was captured and found guilty last year."  
  
"I don't want to hear about him," Sakura said flatly.  
  
"I thought that it would make it easier," Ritsuko said.  
  
"Yes, but he was a son at some point."  
  
"He still is, but his life choices have taken him in another direction."  
  
"Still, I don't want to know anything more about him."  
  
"Very well," Ritsuko said.  
  
The noise level in the room died to a dull roar as the assistant experimentalists settled to their places to wait. The calm was interrupted by loud cursing.  
  
"Damn you all!" a man's rough voice called from the hallway. A clank of chains followed the curses. Four stiff samurai escorted a disheveled man into the cavern. Two black eyes peered from the unshaven and drawn face. Ritsuko approached the man.  
  
"Do you want to confess?" she asked. "A priest can be summoned."  
  
The man spat at her. "Damned crows, you can get at me, AFTER I'm dead."  
  
He laughed as his own joke. Sakura walked closer and studied the man.  
  
"Hey, lady," the condemned man said to Sakura in a conversational tone. "You've got pretty eyes. Almost as pretty as the eyes on the last one I took.  
  
"You know, He said I can keep them, He promised me that I could."  
  
The four guards hauled the struggling man to the stake and secured his chains through the ring. His tern daemon had his beak immobilized by a block of hard wax; she had a fine chain and weight around her foot. The guards secured her chain to the second stake and ring.  
  
The prisoner began to sing a rude song about a drunken man and a fox woman with a social disease. He interrupted his song.  
  
"Hey, can I get a drink. One last sake before I go?"  
  
The four guards retreated away from the prisoner. Sakura blocked out the man's words, his curious glances around the room. Misato and Ritsuko retreated behind a wooden barrier and watched through a slot. Sakura stepped forward with her hands behind her back. Her right hand grasped the silvery blade in a reverse grip. She slipped the fingers of her left hand around the metal spheres. She cleared her mind of everything. The last image she swept away was of Shinji. She studied the man and his daemon. Her daemon padded beside her. They both stood at rest.  
  
A swift step led by her left foot was mirrored by a pounce from her daemon to his right. Bao-Er seized the tern spirit in his jaws and applied enough force to immobilize her. The daemon fluttered helplessly in his enamel prison. Once her daemon had clamped onto her victim's daemon, Sakura's trained senses felt the ethereal link that anchored man to spirit. She tensed her will and focused it on the edge of her blade. The silver blade flashed in a wide arc; the cord gave the barest whisper of resistance before giving away. The blade was nearly wrenched from her hand as a a geyser of force gushed from the cut cord. The man jerked upright with a shudder and then slumped over. Her daemon released the daemon before bounding forward. Sakura continued her windmilling turn as the damaged knifed continued down and away from the strike. Her left arm rose and fell toward the emerging heat. With a backhand flick, she released the metal spheres through the break in the severed cord. As they contacted, the spheres seemed to explode into four blinding globes of auger flame. Sakura did not look at the destruction; she took to her heels and fled from the direction of the casted spheres. She huddled behind a wooden barrier. Her daemon turned and also sprinted away from the fiery missiles, and halting behind another cover.  
  
A brilliant flash lit the entire cavern. The globes of the flame demolished the wall of stone. The super-heated air exploded in a crack of echoing thunder. The ground itself heaved and shook. Sakura nearly pitch off of her feet. A break to a dark abyss opened in the floor. It ran up the solid stone wall and ripped an opening in the ceiling. A cascade of debris rained down from the crack. A wave of heat rebounded from the wall to evaporate the snow into a mass of fog. The hot remains of the stone wall clattered onto ground, a chunk or to thudded off from the barrier Sakura sheltered behind. In a few short moments, the shaking stopped. Muffled sobs, groans of pain, and coughing broke out in the ensuing silence.  
  
Sakura smelled scorched cotton from the hem of her kimono. Her skin felt tight and itchy from the heat. The scent of rain mixed with dust his her nose. She scanned the room. Misato rose shakily from the ground. The woman pulled the nun to her feet. A shattered mass of limestone and splintered of wood lay where they had stood. Several barricades and equipment had been thrown to the ground. Her victim lay against the stake with listless eyes wide open and staring at nothing. His mouth worked like that of a suffocating fish.  
  
"Look there!" A hoarse woman shouted. The disheveled assistant pointed a finger at the destroyed wall. Sakura turned back to the smoldering ruins.  
  
In the mist and dust, she saw a humanoid body take form. It hovered in the mid air. The apparition rippled and shimmered in the airborne debris. It was at least seven feet tall and powerfully built. Two arms, two legs, and a head could be discerned. It moved forward from the destroyed wall, revealing a pair of wings.  
  
It spoke with a resonating voice filled with unmistakable authority. The voice reverberated through the minds of the listeners.  
  
"I am Zeruel. I bring the Justice of Heaven. What has been witnessed must be undone," it declared.  
  
The form brought its hands together and drew a ribbon-shaped bundle of distorted air. With a cast of an arm, the distortion hurtled toward the body of the murderer and sliced through the idiot's neck in one clean stroke before returning and circling around the angel. The sundered head fell to the ground as the body collapsed. A gout of blood erupted from the neck stump, and the severed head rolled from the lime light into the settling dust. 


	26. Attack

Outcasts  
  
26. Attack  
  
The prisoner's body had collapsed like a sack of rice.  
  
The airy distortion, who the prisoner's executioner, bled into sight. A blazing robe reinforced with ebony shoulder and chest plates embraced the graceful, androgynous form. Its invisible weapon solidified into an organic band that writhed and snaked in the alien's hands. Space shimmered around the angel, and its motions shuddered and slipped forward through time in blurs and skips. The air resounded with the oppressive hum of a thousand angry locusts.  
  
It observed the room with a placid air.  
  
Most of the lighting had fallen over. Several intact lamps cut stark lines through the darkness.  
  
From a narrow band of light, a samurai charged forward with a roar. His war cry was muted as if drowned underwater. The red-armored warrior ripped his katana from his sheath with a gleam and the briefest rasp of steel. The angel's white band smoothly impaled the samurai. The dead man advanced another step before the ribbon whipped effortlessly out of his body; a thin stream of blood jetted into the air. The man folded upon himself as he fell backward.  
  
Sakura watched for several heartbeats. She managed to wrench her eyes from the scene and ran. Her heart thundered and threatened to leap out of her throat. The size of her fear felt too large for her body. Her daemon sprinted beside her. Her kimono flapped around her legs with every step. Reflexively, she reversed the point of her knife.  
  
Sakura zigged and zagged through the bands of darkness and brightness. She could almost feel the supernaturally sharp edge punch through her back. She vaulted over a fallen lamp. In the deep shadows, silhouettes flitted in and out of view. Panicked shouting and footfalls echoed riotously through the cavern.  
  
Several steps ahead, Sakura saw a black-clad woman stand paralyzed. Another woman knelt nearby, clutching the huddled furry shape of her daemon. In a blink of an eye, the standing woman was speared through. The ribbon swept sideways, cutting through half of the torso of the standing woman, and then sliced through kneeling woman's neck. The weapon drew sinuously back out of her view. The head held for briefly before it began to slide off, opening a dark cleaving line. Another cry sounded from somewhere behind her.  
  
The room stretched on for too many steps. Her daemon took the lead, agilely bounding over fallen equipment. She mustered all of her speed to follow. Her breath came in sharp hisses.  
  
Sakura was only a few steps away from the exit, when she saw what seemed like a bundle of rags. She commanded her body to clear the obstacle, but she saw a pale and still face peak from under a mop of dusty hair. The sight of the trampled body threw her enough off rhythm to trip over the broken form. A hand clamped around her upper arm to arrest her fall; the hand dragged her to standing.  
  
Sakura shook her hair out of her face and saw Misato holding her. The older woman carried her penguin daemon under her other arm. Misato's eyes widen as she looked into the ruined cavern. She threw them both to the ground, just in time to avoid a blurred streak of white. The cobra-like band darted through the armor, bone, and sinew of a soldier who had just entered the cavern.  
  
The women picked themselves up.   
  
The shining angel advanced relentlessly. The cacophony of locusts increased. Sakura turned away as the warriors fanned around their enemy. Bao-er the daemon sprinted into the corridor in front of Misato and Sakura.  
  
Sakura covered her ears against the klaxon as they sidled past the soldiers guarding the hallway. The soldiers' eyes shined with fear, but they stood their ground clutching the shafts of their spears and naginata. More troops poured in from the rest of the subterranean complex.  
  
The runners emerged into chamber, which housed a massive shaft leading upward. The cottage-sized lifts had already left. The noise was more bearable the in the chamber. Misato paused to look around. Sakura gratefully stopped to gulp air. She clutched the stitch in her side.  
  
"Can you go on?" Misato huffed.  
  
"No choice," Sakura puffed back. She flicked the damaged blade forward and slit the sides of her kimono around the legs. Misato held forth the hem of her garment for a similar treatment. Sakura slipped the weapon into her sash.  
  
Misato glanced at the different corridors and then pointed toward a dimly lit passageway in front of them. Misato set the rhythm at a ground-eating half run.  
  
*****  
  
Sakura felt a few moments of panic when the labyrinthine path sloped downward, but calmed when it led to a stairwell that coiled upward. The steep steps projected from the walls. After twenty minutes or so, the dimly lit stairs seemed to have no end, but she could smell drafts of sweet surface air wafted around them.  
  
"We're almost there," Misato gasped as they paused for a spell. The older woman doubled over and clasped her knees, her breaths were loud in the quiet. Pen-Pen squawked plaintively and clung to his human with both flippers.  
  
"Should we stay down here?" Sakura asked; she felt stunned by fatigue.  
  
"No," Misato answered. "It found us deep underground in the first place. It'll be able to find us again. I'm not going to be hunted down in the dark," Misato said resolutely. "We're almost at the surface. Meeting up with Ritsuko may be our best chance."  
  
"How can she help?"  
  
"I'm sure that you're out of the shots you need for the Severing."  
  
"I'm not sure if that'll help," Sakura said.  
  
"You won't know until you try."  
  
Sakura's reply was interrupted by a massive boom. It ripped through the bedrock. The solid stone jolted with the impact and shook, tossing the women into the walls. Hot and dust laden geysered up through the middle of the stair shaft. It whipped their hair and kimonos into a gale born dance. Sakura nearly fell down the stairs, but managed to collide with a wall and cling onto it with desperate strength. She threw herself onto her hands and knees and clung onto the quaking stone steps. As swiftly as the impact began, it halted. Sakura glanced down the winding stairs and immediately regretted it; the long way down swam uneasily behind her.  
  
Pain began to pulse through her jarred bones and scraped hands and knees. Her torn fingernails and fingertips stung fiercely; grit had embedded into the wounds.  
  
"What was that?" Sakura asked while awkwardly wiping dust from her face.  
  
Misato hawked and spat out a globule of blackened phlegm.  
  
"We have to keep moving," Misato said. The older woman picked up Pen-Pen once again and offered a hand to the girl. Sakura forced herself to her feet. The way up was long.  
  
*****  
  
Bao-er was the first to emerge under the pallid sun, which was further enervated by the plume of dust issuing from the mouth of the lift shaft. In spite of their fatigue, they walked the last hundred yards to meet more than a dozen black-clad survivors sprawled out on the snow. Black soot caked around the nuns' mouths and noses. Every inch of their bodies were coated in dust. The white ground had been begrimed. Some of the survivors were wracked with coughing. A few avian daemons lay prostrate on the ground. Many of others hobbled to their humans.  
  
"Ritsuko," Misato croaked. "What the hell happened?"   
  
Ritsuko was in a crouch and held a shuddering and crying Ibuki. Ritsuko's cat daemon sprawled on his side, too exhausted to begin cleaning himself.  
  
"That thing destroyed the cables holding up the first lift with a burst of light. It fell. We watched it fall. There must have been at least thirty on it," Ritsuko said hollowly. "Then the samurai detonated a massive bomb in the shaft and buried it. We were almost stuck in there."  
  
"Ritsuko, do you have any more of the shots? For the Severing."  
  
"Why?" the woman responded wearily. "It was buried under a small mountain. Most bene elim are no stronger than you or I."   
  
"Bene elim?" hiccuped Ibuki. "Angels? They're real?"  
  
"Yes," Ritsuko said. "Very real."  
  
"Wait!" Misato demanded sharply. "You knew this might happen? You were prepared for this?"  
  
"Not really. We were ready to bury the place for a number of reasons," Ritsuko replied. "The answer to your previous question is no, we only were able to fabricate the eight used before and the four used a little whilte ago."  
  
The ground rumbled once again, hushing them. The breathing and coughing fell silent. Ritsuko half turned with widened eyes. Ibuki looked up slowly. All eyes turned to subterranean passage.  
  
Sakura drew out the cracked blade again and sank into a defensive stance. Misato crouched in the snow and drew out a snub-nosed revolver out of the sash. In one smooth motion, she cocked the hammer on the .38 caliber, and then took aim toward the shaft.  
  
Silence reigned. Falling snow slumped softly in the trees.  
  
Suddenly, stone geysered from the lift shaft with a deafening roar. The airborne shards reached several stories into the air before they were devoured by a tower of fury and light. When the spire brushed the underbelly of the sky, the roaring fury erupted a pair of arms to form a colossal cruciform. The unbridled brilliance seared away color, leaving only glare and shadow. Though Sakura threw up her arms against the brilliance; carmine blood still shined through her compressed eyelids.   
  
The heat and wind smote Sakura and drove her to her knees. The air reverberated with the visitor's alien presence. Through the confusion of spots in her watering eyes, she could still discern the angel rising from the wounded earth. 


	27. Counterattack

Outcasts  
  
27. Counterattack  
  
Sakura's sight cleared. The angel dispatched its closest victim with a swift strike. It moved in an expanding spiral, inflicting one blow on each target.  
  
She gripped her knife. The six inches of cracked metal seemed useless. Misato's revolver cracked with a pathetically small noise. A part of Sakura wanted to run, another part wanted to stand with Misato, and a final part wanted let her wretchedly heavy body fall to the snow. She had almost risen to her feet when a heavy body pitched into her, slamming her back into the ground.  
  
Sakura levered the still weight off from her; it was warm, as was the blood that had spilled onto her. The blade had slipped out of her hand. She casted around for it. Her fumbling fingers closed around the hilt and picked up the damaged blade. The point had chipped. It had broken off. New thoughts flooded into her mind. Her heart began to thump heavily in her chest once again; this time it was from excitement, though it was still tinged with fear.   
  
The blade and the rounded shots were made from the same metal.  
  
She searched around and found a head-sized stone that had landed nearby. Rapidly, she scuttled to the rock and swung at it with all of her strength. The brittle metal snapped with a satisfying crack. A scrap of metal rebounded and slashed her across the cheek, but she took no notice. Sakura swiftly considered her own cord, but dismissed it since she would not be able to complete her strike.  
  
A familiar voice tugged at the edge of her attention. She ignored it and frantically scanned around. The voice called again, and this time she looked up. Shinji? How had he gotten there?  
  
The boy cradled Misato's head on his lap. The woman had curled onto his lap. Blood darkened the debris-coated ground. Sakura felt strangely disconnected as she took in the scene; she felt as if she could step out of her own body and become a bystander.  
  
The albino girl knelt next to her brother. She held up her arms as if supporting an enormous weight. Motes of gold flared and dissipated around her hands. A dome of delicate gilded filaments shimmered over them, blurring the outside like a pane of uneven glass. Sakura noticed that the constant humming had died down to a dull roar. The angel wandered outside of the dome, tracing a circle around the structure.  
  
A ray of intense light projected from the angel's face. When the searching light touched the gilded shelter, Rei's construct bobbed and fluxed like shaken water in a glass, but managed to shed the searching beam. Rei gritted her teeth and struggled to maintain the structure.  
  
The underside of the structure seemed full of shadow. All of the daemons were more ghostly than solid; each bestial body contained a hallowed essence that flared and burned brightly. Within Misato, she saw a low flickering fire of many colors. Shinji possessed the brightest lifeforce. A trickle of his shining essence flowed to the woman. She also saw a silver cord lead from Shinji to Rei and another connect back. Ritsuko and Ibuki also sheltered in the dome. A cord that connected each human to each daemon.  
  
The woman who had pitched into Sakura lay at the edge of the dome. The woman did not move, but Sakura could see her ebbing life force and the cord that led to her small canine daemon. The daemon had arduously dragged himself next to his human. Sakura held the stub of her blade in her left and the broken shard in her right. The angel was completing a second circuit and was almost in her sights.  
  
"Sorry," she whispered under her breath before she charged forward. The jagged stub was aimed low. Three swift steps brought her to the dying nun. A upward sweep slashed the bond between woman and spirit. She was vaguely aware that the left sleeve of her kimono and hand had caught on fire. With a swift turn, then she hurled the fragment through the cloud of multi-chromatic energy that escaped from the severed and fading thread. The edge caught on her fingers, as she torqued an axial spin into the projectile, and scraped the fingers on her right hand clean of skin. The jagged shard caught on the skein of the released energy and towed it along. The glowing missile pierced the veil of filaments. As it tore through the field, the shadow-laden sight fell away and transformed the projectile into an ember of sunfire. It streaked toward the angel and struck against an unseen barrier. The barrier distorted, dissipating a portion of the energy of the attack in a torrent of heat, but the power was too great. After several moments, the tortured shield tore under the force of the attack. The unimpeded aurum shard stabbed into the angel's face and then erupted from the other side. The wounded creature bucked backward in pain. Its hands wrapped around its face. It gave out a howl that exploded in her mind and filled her every cell with excruciating pain.  
  
After Sakura completed the rotation of her attack, she felt a sharp sensation in her chest and the world grew topsy-turvy; she was falling. The vertigo did not leave her even after she had struck the ground. Warm wetness soaked into her kimono and pooled on her chest as she fell unconscious.  
  
27.5 Ritsuko's Report  
  
The nun carefully lowered her battered body into stiff chair near Ikari Gendou's desk. Her left wrist was immobilized in a cast. She still carried the dust from pulverized stone mixed with the stench of blood.  
  
The lord of the Church had assumed his characteristic pose; elbows on the bureau, hands folded, and chin rested on the immaculate white gloved knuckles. His serpentine daemon raised her cowled head to add two more staring eyes.  
  
Fuyutski closed the door and walked into the room.  
  
"Four," the silver haired man said. "Four bene elim. The last confirm sighting of one was a hundred and fifty years ago."  
  
"Yes," Ritsuko said. "The attacker was known as Zeruel. The other three were unknown, probably lower ranked. The group of three revealed themselves after Miss Natsushiro Sakura severed Sister Murai and attacked Zeruel with her technique.  
  
"Ibuki said that the three lesser Angels resembled sparrows harrying a hawk."  
  
"Apt," Fuyutski replied. "How much did Lady Horaki and her party see?"  
  
"I'll have to ask."  
  
"It does not change anything," Gendou stated. "It only reveals that the stakes are higher. An explanation will be fabricated."  
  
"A small portion of the truth should serve," Ritsuko said.  
  
"Of course, a half truth is the best lie," Gendou answered.  
  
"Thanks to Lady Horaki and the boy," Ritsuko continued. "Misato, the girl, Natsushiro, and another two sisters pulled through the attack. We have lost most of our staff in one day, over forty experimental theologians. Countless samurai were also sacrificed."  
  
"The expedition is still intact," Gendou said. "Events are still within our parameters."  
  
"I am not sure why it attacked." Ritsuko asked.  
  
"For the past hundred and fifteen years," Fuyutski began. "After the fall of Anti-Pope Lorenz, the grip of the reactionary faction loosened, eventually giving the experimental theologians more freedom."  
  
Ritsuko nodded in response.  
  
"The Consistorial Court has only recently lifted the ban on researching Severing and Ruskatov particles. The two have been linked," Fuyutski continued. "The freedom has corresponded with the absence of the angels. Given that the angels are emissaries from the Kingdom of Heaven, it is reasonable to conclude that the Kingdom and its representatives were preoccupied for a time."  
  
"And the preoccupation ended. They have taken notice of us again," Ritsuko added. "We treaded on dangerous ground, though I would have thought that working under Pope Lorenz would have bought us immunity."  
  
"He, too, has been out of the loop," Gendou said. "We must assume that the Kingdom seeks to re-exert its hegemony. Our schedule must be advanced. I will leave that to you."  
  
"Very well," Ritsuko answered. "I will begin planning in the morning. If I may, fathers," she said as she rose. "I wish to take my leave. I shall complete my report in writing."  
  
A knock sounded at the door. A thin servant slipped into the room and bowed.  
  
"There is a boy asked to see you, milord. He came out of a seldom used passage."  
  
"Let him in," Gendou said. The servant bowed and opened the room.  
  
A wan Ikari Shinji walked into the room and bowed deeply to the three near the desk.  
  
"What do you want?" Gendou demanded.  
  
The boy flushed slightly and began to stutter a reply.  
  
"Speak! We don't have all night."  
  
"A-a request," Shinji said, clenching his fists. Sweat glistened on his brow. "I know that you want something of me. Otherwise you wouldn't have sent the letter."  
  
"And?"  
  
"A willing servant is more useful than an unwilling one," Shinji said. He feel to his knees and struck his the line of his hair audibly against the floor. "I'll do all that you ask. Just, please, protect Miss Natsushiro Sakura." 


	28. Trails in the Snow

Outcasts   
  
28. Trails in the Snow  
  
Hikari finished off her rice; the taste of ashes had clung to hear mouth as she ate. She couldn't get rid of the scent though she had scrubbed her hands raw. That afternoon, Hikari had helped to carry bodies of the wounded and dead on the jury rigged stretchers. Everything had been covered with ashes.  
  
Her mind was full of questions. What were those two here? The twins. What was Sakura doing there? What was that strange being of light? Hikari and her party had come onto a strange scene.  
  
The entry to a hole in the ground lay wreathed with ash. An androgynous being of light patrolled a ground littered with bloody corpses. Moments, several people appear, including Sakura, the weird twins, and Misato. Sakura hurled a fiery projectile at the alien being and managed to hit. The being struck back and impaled her with a ribbon-like weapon. Afterward, three other beings of light seemingly came from the air and harried and harassed the first one until they ascended to the sky and disappeared.  
  
"Gods? Goddesses?" Hikari murmured aloud."What were they?"   
  
"Angels," Asuka said from across her. The Deutsch girl had been unusually quiet during the meal.  
  
"Sister Mary said that they had played harps and had hallows of light," Hikari trailed off lamely. She shivered as she recalled the broken bodies of the nuns. Yoshi-hiko curled closer to her.  
  
"I think that's a more recent thing. In the Book, some of them brought plagues, punishment, and other fun gifts."  
  
"So what was one doing here?" Hikari asked. "If Lord Ikari has angered the Authority, then I think we should reconsider our journey."  
  
She trailed off. As the daughter of Lord Horaki, she had gone to the Church's school to learn the foreigners' language and manners, but she was to keep with the ways of her father and his father. Hikari was unsettled by the idea that the Church teachings were more than myths and stories.  
  
"Well, it's not going to stop me," Asuka said. The Deutsch girl deposited her bowl forcefully back onto the tray placed in front of her. The bowl was still half full. Her eyebrows knit together. "I'm not going back now; I won't give them the satisfaction."  
  
"I will have to consult with my father," Hikari said. "I will continue if he wills it."  
  
Asuka rose. Her daemon launched himself from his perch on the wall and landed on her shoulder. The red haired girl crept two steps forward to sit before Hikari's table. Hikari met the intense double gaze of girl and daemon.  
  
"Hikari," Asuka said. "So far, I've been impressed with you, when you confronted Sister Amelie, when you fought your own duel. I haven't done that yet. I don't impress easily.  
  
"We are both about to become women. Womanhood means marriage, probably to some fat beast. They tell us that we'll be happy and that we'll learn to love. Love?! I spit on it!" Asuka snarled as she pounded her open hand on the tatami mats. "It's all a sham. They expect us to be good girls and then trap us with their lies. We have a chance to be more than that, and it only comes once. We have a chance to make more of ourselves before they can try and stick us in their damned gilded cages. I don't care if it's the One that they offended, He set up the rotten rules in the first place!  
  
"I'm saying this for your sake. If you don't take this chance now, you'll regret it."  
  
Asuka rose abruptly and left the room.  
  
Hikari sighed.   
  
"We have enough to worry about," Yoshi-hiko said. "It is in your father's hands."  
  
"It's just another thing to worry about," Hikari answered as she pinched her nose above the bridge, right between her eyes. "It just doesn't help."  
  
"A lot has happened today."  
  
"Yes," Hikari said. As she closed her eyes, she could see the still bodies. She perversely felt comforted that she was still be disturbed by death. She had been strangely calm over the death of the ronin. Overly calm, she had thought after Touji had approached her and tried to comfort her. Touji, Hikari thought. She could always talk with him, at least it used to be that way.  
  
A servant had interrupted her reverie by clearing up Asuka's dishes.  
  
"Excuse me," Hikari asked.  
  
"Yes," the young man answered politely.  
  
"Have you seen my friend, Suzuhara Touji? He's the tall and bald samurai in my party."  
  
"Yes, he is in the small garden two hallways down," the servant began. "I could show the way or call someone else to show you the way."  
  
"No, it's fine," Hikari answered. She stood and reflexively picked up her katana. "Just tell me the way."  
  
Hikari found him in a small snow-covered garden. The samurai stood stripped to waist in the light radiating from the lone lantern hanging to one side of the courtyard. He heaved labored breaths. His well-muscled body shined with sweat. The youth had added mass and muscle to his frame in last year and more, since the time he left for the Middle Kingdom. He held his sword at shoulder height, tip pointed toward his right. His daemon crouched by his left side. Touji had squared himself with a bare tree.  
  
Hikari circled him to get a better angle of what he was doing. She stopped as he pulled the blade closer to his body and raised it to vertical. He tapped the steel with his left hand, and let it fall while pinning the base of the hilt with his fingers. The katana fell like a pendulum and swung past its nadir and past horizontal to come close to upright again. As the blade rose again, his left hand clasped around the hilt. The samurai's right hand closed with his left.  
  
Touji abruptly turned away from the tree. His waist led his momentum. His daemon launched herself across his front with a lightning step. The samurai slashed his katana in a full circle arc as his daemon chased the edge's path. The youth gave out an inhuman scream.  
  
As the sword came within a whisker of the bark, it seemed to pull the light into itself and become black. His feral daemon dove at the same time, and it looked to Hikari as if it had momentarily disappeared. The dark blade cut cleanly through the tree in whirl of trailing lightless arcs. After the blade had passed through, the tree stood still and undisturbed for a moment. Hikari's heart skipped a beat as the tree slid from its base and fell slowly; its branches crackled in protest as it tried to hang onto its skeletal fellows. The tree crashed to the ground, sending up a puff of snow.  
  
The samurai had walked to a corner of the courtyard. Hikari was relieved to see that his daemon padded next to him. Touji stopped before a patch of green hedges. Hikari walked across the snow. She reached a few feet of him before she heard the sound of falling water sprinkling upon the hedge's needles. His daemon turned around to look at her expectantly.  
  
"Please, forgive the intrusion," Hikari said to the spirit with a slight tilt of her head.  
  
The girl walked back to the hewn tree and examined the cleanly cut trunk. It reeked of singed wood. She ran a hand over the skewed surface. There was no doubt about it, the blow had been a single clean slice. The higher edge was slightly sticky with sap, the lower edge bore singe marks. Yoshi-hiko clambered onto the stump and clawed out some flakes of heat hardened sap. The upper part of the tree bore several notches from previous attempts.  
  
"I'm sorry, milady," Touji said. He had draped his shirt loosely over his shoulders. His hands scrubbed each other with a clump of snow. "I had been standing in the cold for a time and couldn't hold it anymore."  
  
"I understand that you couldn't help it," she answered with a slight blush. "I didn't know that you could do this," she said with a gesture freshly fallen lumber.  
  
The samurai stepped over the log. He discarded the soiled slush in his hands. He sat down and pulled his blade onto his lap. His daemon put her head in his lap. Hikari took a seat two steps away; the distance felt modest, though it was farther than they used to sit from each other.  
  
"I've only successfully done with once before," Touji grunted. The samurai was still breathing hard. "And that was more by chance that anything else."  
  
"Can you teach this to me?" Hikari asked abruptly.  
  
"Actually, I was hoping to learn it so you didn't have to. To tell you the truth, when I was training in Yueh, I decided to learn to wield my katana so that you wouldn't have to."  
  
"Why did you think that I was going to take up the sword?" she asked solemnly. Until she had learned about the journey, she had not had a reason to seriously take up the katana, and that was before his return to Nippon. Did Touji know something that she didn't?  
  
"I met a seer of sorts in the southern lands of the Middle Kingdom," Touji said slowly. He hesitated as he spoke. "She taught me a great deal, and she told me a lot of things that looked like riddles at the time, but seem so much clearer now."  
  
"She?" Hikari asked.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"It's none of my business," Hikari said. "But is she why you sound sad?"  
  
"I don't really want to talk about it," Touji said.  
  
"We used to never keep secrets from each other," Hikari said.  
  
"Sorry, I'll tell you another time," her old friend answered. "Her name was Lian, she didn't give me any other name. I don't think that she had any to give.  
  
"Lian told me that I had two paths to follow. In one, I would throw my sword into the waterfall that we stood near, and it would rust there. The other path, my sword would lie broken from after my last battle. I would set myself against the heavens themselves. She said that the end of the path would come sooner rather than later in a city of tall gray and glass towers."  
  
A shiver ran down Hikari's spine; though it was cold, it had nothing to do with the weather. Hikari felt an urgency to speak her mind.   
  
"Do you think that she telling the truth? She could have been saying that - saying it just to keep you."  
  
"No," Touji answered. "I don't believe that she would have. Today, I saw the enemy and now I know why she taught me what she did. That was what Lian called it. Let's leave it at that for now."  
  
"Touji," she said familiarly as she did when they were children. "Have you ever thought of what it would have been like if I weren't the daughter of Lord Horaki?"  
  
"I did once, but not anymore."  
  
"I see, thank you for telling me the truth."  
  
A quiet footfall in the snow set off Hikari's reflexes. Hikari caught a whiff of ashes. She spun around and jerked her sword out of its sheath. Her draw stopped when she saw a familiar daemon snuffling at her tracks. A pale Sakura followed her daemon; the pretty young woman had a distant expression on her face. She reminded Hikari of a ghost. The geisha carried the faint reek of mine dust and fire with her.  
  
"Sorry for startling you, Lady Horaki," Sakura said with a bend at the waist; she spoke formally to the girl. Her daemon touched his belly to the ground.  
  
Hikari slid her blade back into its sheath.  
  
"Isn't it a little soon for you to leave the infirmary?" Touji asked politely.  
  
"There is something that cannot wait," Sakura said. The woman unexpectedly slid onto the ground with her forehead to the snow. Her daemon fell back down beside her. "I have a favor to ask you, Lady Horaki."  
  
"Please rise," Hikari said. "The ground is snowy. Perhaps we should head indoors."  
  
Sakura and Bao-er rose. "If you are cold, however, this may be the best place to speak."  
  
"Understood," Hikari said. She glanced unconsciously at the sky and rooftops. "We'll stay here."  
  
"There isn't much time, so please forgive me if I speak rudely," Sakura declared. "I am asking if you could request a meeting with Lord Ikari, and if I could accompany you."  
  
"I think that I have a right to know why," Hikari answered. "I am here as a representative of my father and cannot make the request lightly."  
  
"Of course," Sakura replied. "I want to see Shinji and I think that Shinji is with Lord Ikari. I don't have a good feeling about it."  
  
"Why would he be there?" Hikari asked.  
  
The young woman bit her lower lip and answered in a low voice. "Because he is Lord Ikari's son , and they don't get along."  
  
Hikari looked at her sharply.  
  
"Lady Ikari's only child died during birthing. He also has a sister. But if he is Lord Ikari's son, yes, it makes sense," Hikari concluded. If the boy were an Ikari, then the abomination of their births would need to be hidden. It also explained why the boy and his sister were at the Ikari home. Quickly, she pushed the thoughts into the back of her mind. Another thought pressed on her mind. The dirty gray debris around the mouth of the shaft. There had also been the faux shadow at the Fukugawa manor after a blast. "I have a question for you, Sakura."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"When I saw you in my father's house, did you have any other business there? Or nearby?"  
  
"Yes, Lady Horaki, and I apologize that my actions caused inconvenience to you later on."  
  
"Thank you, Sakura," Hikari said. Her mind worked quickly. "I may have a few more questions later on. Let us go see Lord Ikari."  
  
"Thank you, Lady," Sakura said with a deep bow. "I am in your debt." 


	29. Orphans of an Ancient War

Hikari rounded the corner to hear a piercing voice.  
  
Asuka's back was turned to her. She stood with her legs planted out and her back ramrod straight. Her left hand was braced against of the hip of her green woolen dress. The other was held out at the elbow as a leather clad perch for Siegsmyrth. The raptor daemon glared down at a mouse daemon as if ready to pounce.  
  
The little spirit cowered his human, who was a servant. The servant bowed nervously.  
  
"How DARE you speak to me that way!" Asuka harangued. The girl snarled out a phrase in Deutsch; the tone made the man wince.  
  
Hikari mentally sighed. Her father had warned her to watch how a person treated his inferiors.  
  
"Good evening," Hikari announced. "What's going on?"  
  
"Hello, Hikari," Asuka greeted in a mild tone, and then turned back to the servant. "This - fellow refuses to convey my message to Lord Ikari," Asuka answered.  
  
"Is Lord Ikari preoccupied?" Hikari asked the servant politely.  
  
"Y-yes, milady," the servant said. "I am very sorry, but his lordship is busy."  
  
"It is unfortunate that I must intrude, but if you could find out the earliest time at which Lord Ikari can spare to speak to the representative of Lord Horaki and the Baroness Sohryu, then I would be grateful," Hikari requested. She put extra emphasis on Asuka's title and hoped that the servant was merely confused about Asuka's foreign rank.  
  
Outcasts  
  
29. Orphans of an Ancient War  
  
"I'll do all that you ask. Just please, protect Natsushiro Sakura," Shinji pleaded.  
  
Ikari Gendou raked his son with his bespectacled glare. He studied the boy with a frown. His daemon slithered down from the ecclesiastic's black clad torso to the ground. The long serpent approached the kneeling boy. She reared above the boy's bared neck, and spread her hood. The naja gave a dry hiss as she flicked her tongue in the air.  
  
Shinji glanced up briefly, and then quickly turned his eyes back to the ground from the unrelenting gazes. He could read neither the man's nor daemon's expression. The boy forced himself to keep huddled and still.  
  
Long moments later, the serpent daemon slid back to the priest.  
  
"Yes, I have a use for you," Ikari Gendou answered brusquely. "Sister Akagi will direct you from here."  
  
The man arose from his bureau and exited through a back door. A guard opened the door from him. Fuyutski followed.  
  
"Sit down, Shinji," Ritsuko ordered. "There is much to be done."  
  
Shinji pushed himself onto his knees, as he released a pented breath.  
  
"What do I have to do?" Shinji asked. He pulled in a shaky breath. The nun held a neutral expression on her face.  
  
"Stay here for now," the nun responded. She opened the same door that Gendou had used and spoke with a guard briefly, before turning back the boy. "I want you to understand that what happens must not leave this room. We are performing an important task. Your father's work will impact the whole world and more."  
  
"More than the world?"  
  
"Yes," Ritsuko answered.  
  
"What do you mean? Like the heavens and hells?"  
  
"I was referring more to worlds like ours, they are populated by people like us. Imagine a Nippon where the Shogunate had lost the war to the rebels and had opened Nippon to the foreigners. What would our homeland be like then?"  
  
Shinji studied the woman for a moment and tried to divine an ulterior motive. He glanced at her cat daemon who stared him a similar poker face. His second sight told him that she was a woman who smoked, but was otherwise healthy. He decided to answer the question as neutrally as possible.  
  
"The Church's presence would be stronger, and the shogunate would have been weakened."  
  
"Good. Imagine if that different world had happened and exists out there right now, except that we cannot touch it. This is considered a heresy by the Church, but if it really happens, then there would be thousands of other worlds out there, breathing and living along side of us."  
  
"Would they know about us?" Shinji asked tentatively. He did not really undestand, but the chatter was better than silence. The woman could also be testing him.  
  
"Perhaps," the sister answered.  
  
The nun leaned back against the edge of the bureau with her hand right behind her. The woman's left wrist was bound in a bandage. Her slanted posture reminded him of Misato's; there was a masculine boldness to her movements. Even stranger, she had said 'your father'. Most of all, the woman looked at him without disgust or fear.  
  
"Would they have daemons?" Shinji asked.  
  
"I've never thought about that, who knows. Maybe, maybe not."  
  
"That would be strange, a world without daemons," Shinji concluded  
  
The door opened again to admit a shorter nun with slight build. Her short hair made her look even more boyish. Her shoulders slumped slightly and her daemon sat listlessly on her shoulder. She carried a glass flask in one hand.   
  
"Sister Akagi," Ibuki said with a bow. "Hello," she said to Shinji uncertainly.  
  
"Sister Ibuki," Ritsuko greeted.  
  
"Sister Ibuki," Shinji said.  
  
"How are the patients?" Ritsuko asked her protege.  
  
"They all seem stable considering there wounds," Ibuki answered. She turned and bowed deeply toward Shinji. "I never got to thank you for helping my sisters earlier."  
  
"It was the least I could do," Shinji replied. His attention focused on the flask.  
  
Ritsuko relieved Ibuki of the Erlenmeyer flask. She unstoppered it and handed it to Shinji. The boy took it carefully in both hands.  
  
"Your first task is to drink this."  
  
"What is it?" Shinji asked suspiciously. If my father wants me to drink it, this can't be good.  
  
He sniffed at the clear liquid. It smelled vaguely of rotten eggs. His health sight showed him that the liquid was tainted with a dense life energy. It was far more active than pond water, though the pattern was very different.  
  
"It is water, laced with old memories. It should taste and smell like water," Ritsuko explained. "The scent is from the well water. There was more sulphur in the air during the last Ice Age. Don't spill it, it was devilishly hard to distill."  
  
It's a part of the bargain and it's for Sakura, Shinji thought as he steeled himself. He stared into the clear depths. A faint reflection of his eye stared back at him. It blinked. I can't go back now, he told himself. Have to push on.  
  
He tossed back the old water in one motion. It sluiced down his throat and descended without trouble. He drained the half-flaskful and then set down the glass beside him.  
  
Shinji felt queasy as the fluid settled. A moment later, it felt as if a hand had clenched around his stomach. He reeled and fell to all fours. The pain constricted until his innards felt as if they trying to turn themselves inside out. He clapped his hands over his mouth as he struggled to keep the fluid in. A pair of hands rolled him onto his side as he wracked in pain. The hands tried to pry his hands from his mouth, but withdrew as the boy calmed. He lay on his back, panting. His stomach still roiled.  
  
His body felt wrong, it was too small and dense. His skin itched unbearably. Shinji's gaze raced around the room; his vision blurred. His face felt too flat, and his eyes were stationed too far apart. He touched his face with alien fingers. There were five fingers on each hand. That was four too many, all together. The color was off. The digits were too fat and rounded. He hand two eyes, which was one too many. He blinked as if he could clear his vision of its flatness and see more colors.  
  
There were several other voices in the room. They sounded familiar.  
  
"Oh, it's the freak,"a voice declared with a foreign accent.  
  
"Shinji!" that was Sakura.  
  
"Welcome," answered a woman's voice. Sister Akagi.  
  
Shinji arose with an uncertain balance. He stumbled and staggered. Someone caught him. Something encumbered his limbs, clothes. That's what they were called. He struggled to pull them off, but someone stilled his hands.  
  
"Stop it! What's wrong?" Sakura demanded. He stared up at her uncomprehendingly. "What have you done to him?"  
  
His touch and hearing seemed only half his. Everything felt separated by a translucent film. A part of him was shocked to see the bizarre face. Another part of him was relieved to see her. He tried to say something, but it came out as a wail.  
  
"Shinji, say something," Sakura insisted.  
  
"Ugh, uh, yes," Shinji struggled out. His head had begun to hurt.  
  
Shinji felt his awkward legs carry him forward a shaky step. He wasn't sure where he was going, but the pressure in his mind guided him. His legs took another step. He felt fear and panic, he was on the ground and in a tunnel of some sort. The woman supported him as he went.  
  
Being on the ground was wrong. He should be high up. Fledgings fell and fledglings died. An image flashed of tall perfect columns rising into an overcast sky swirled with thick beryl clouds. The cumulus masses twisted into spikes that threatened to whorl down to the earth. All around him were pools of emerald water. Curved rods of green crystal lay scattered all around him. He realized that the crystals were bones of some sort. At the sight of the inhuman skeletons, Shinji was flooded by an inexplicable wave of sorrow. Steam rose in hefty clouds. In the distance, a spray of steam geysered a hundred and more feet.  
  
The image disappeared. Shinji realized that he was outside, which was better, though he was still uneasy about being on the ground. His stockinged feet ached as he crunched through the snow, but he pressed on. There was somewhere he had to be. His muscles had tensed and torqued until his skull was ready shatter under the force and his right eye would blow out, but the pain grew worse if he thought about stopping.  
  
Shinji walked beneath a dense canopy of evergreens. Needles and cones blanketed the ground. The place looked different to him, but he vaguely remembered being there long before. A path still ran through the middle of the place. Quickly, he found the base of what had been the tallest column. He wanted to get to higher ground. He disengaged Sakura's hands and made his way to a crumbling mound of stone. The fallen column lay in eroded chunks. The carvings were replaced with moss and wear. The same held for the other six columns.  
  
The other people had joined him on the mound. Shinji could not concentrate on what they were saying. He had another task at hand; there was something that he had to see. Without thinking about it, he raised his hands to the sky to let the force of his will flow forth, carrying the pented memories. The pain dissipated. The air shimmered as the memory was restored.  
  
The sky cleared, and the stars aligned themselves to their proper positions. A bright moon shone overhead. Seven once fallen columns towered overhead; the runes were freshly carved. The road widened enough for an army to pass through. At the sides of the road were three pairs of stone columns that towered a dozen stories overhead. The road ended at the base of the tallest column. Between each pair was a spandreled arch, which curved gently like the top of an ellipse. To the sides of the path were dozens of trees stripped into standing poles.   
  
On each shorn treetop perched the silhouette of a featherless avian. Each one clenched a pole with a pair of stubby legs. A short triangular tail hung between the legs. Mounted on the legs was a lean body that stretched into a pair of graceful sail-like wings; each wing stretched at least a house's width across. A curved, heavy beak was mounted beneath a hooded eye and a backward crest on top of the head. The bright yellow eyes stared. Each eye had three black pupils radiating like petals from the heart of an iris. The avians continually scanned the ground like hungry raptors.  
  
Shinji felt the others ground dwellers move closer to him, but he did not pay attention to them, because his people perched overhead. The largest of the avians perched over head on the column. Shinji realized that she was the owner of the memories. They were all gone. The feelings lost and longing flowed through him. He wanted to see it all again.  
  
He turned to the path. The avians called and coutercalled in a raucous chorus. The boy realized that he should probably translate. With an effort, his throat managed to find his human voice. Shinji spoke as one with the leader.   
  
"Tengu! Our numbers dwindle by the generation. The Unkindness of Malachite shall soon be extinct. Our bones fall from our perches to soften on the ground instead of hardening in the sacred wells we left so long ago.  
  
"We have done all we can, but these skies carry strange winds and strange sicknesses. Worse, traitors patrol the deep, dark skies beyond. Yet, we meet our allies and to leave a record of what we have done. Our legacy has been secured. The Authority shall NOT have the ultimate victory.  
  
"Salute our brave companions!"  
  
The tengu gave out a great cry. The ground rumbled in response. Next to Shinji, someone made a gagging noise as the allies emerged from the darkness. The air filled with the scent of pungent herbs, pitch, and other alien chemical scents. At the front were bright lanterns floating several feet off of the ground. As they approached, the lights could be clearly seen as the glowing abdomen of rooster-sized wasps. Behind them scuttled squat beetles that pounded the ground with their bellies in an inexorable tattoo. They stopped before the first gate. Beyond, a mass of bodies rested.  
  
The tengu cried out again in a cacophonous chorus. The beetle drummers responded with their bellies. Their wings unfolded and hummed. The beetles came to a rest, but the tengu continued. The space enclosed by the first arch shifted as if offset from the rest of the space around it. The second arch responded in the same way. The troop began forward. The third portal projected a one foot deep image filled with a red sky and lush green plants. Heat radiated from the final arch.  
  
Shinji and the others watched from above as the leading edge of the host rippled through the first arch and then the second. A vast stream of many colored bugs surged over each other in a sheet of everchanging color. Each wingless body was as large an outspread adult hand. They carried white squirming grubs and sickly yellow cocoon between their pincers. The front of the column walked through the third portal into the image. The undergrowth was trampled by the multitudes of feet.  
  
Upstream, larger shapes rode on the backs of the bugs. There were several human height insects, which vaguely resemble mantises wearing black carapaces decorated with bright red markings. Several smaller bugs clung to their bodies and pumped incessantly. A hundred or so yards later, a bloated house-sized belly mounted with a tiny black head and body was hauled through the gate. It was followed by innumerable white eggs carried by more of the bugs.  
  
The voices of the tengu rose in a cheer as the the largest and last load emerged from the darkness. It was dragged by thousands of bodies using strained ropes wrapped around the oblong mass. At first the shell looked green, but once it came closer, the human watchers could see that the shell was translucent. The color came from a network of enormous pumping organs and miles upon miles of twitching sinew. A mass shifted in the depths. A half-formed chitinous skull looked up at the watchers; the coils of the brain were clearly visible. Four bright green eyes opened and focused briefly before closing again. Finally, the last of the organism was dragged through and the gate closed.  
  
Above, the tengu chorus sounded ragged. Several of the avians hid their heads beneath their wings and dozed. They awoke again as four new flyers approached. Their outlines showed two legs, arms, wings, and a single head mounted on a bulky body. The tengu screeched a greeting as the newcomers landed at the end of the avenue. They slammed onto the trampled snow.  
  
The reek of brimstone filled the air. Each was coal black, at least ten feet tall, and almost as wide across the shoulders. Curled horns adorned their ram heads. Low rumbles filled their throats. They snorted clouds of vapor from wide nostrils. Cunning red eyes glowed as bright as anabaric lights. Their bat wings folded on their backs. Long arms with oversized hands hung below their knees. The beings approached on cloven hooves and towed long tails tipped with spaded fins.  
  
The gate opened again, but this time to a cold and lightless place. The devilish beings stalked through with thunderous steps. The third arch closed behind them.  
  
The air shimmered again as the mirage faded back into the familiar night. However, the nearby snow remained melted.  
  
============================  
  
A/N:  
  
I couldn't find any better terms for spandreled arch, and I didn't really like any of the definitions that I found online or in my dictionary.  
  
spandreled arch - This is an architectural term. Imagine drawing   
  
1. the top half of a circle  
  
2. a line up (shorter than or as tall as the height of the half circle)  
  
3. a line from the tip of of the first line to the arch  
  
If the semicircle is the arch, then the area enclosed by the semicircle and the pair of lines is the spandrel. It looks a bit like a triangle.  
  
The semi-circle with two spandrels (one at each end) forms a spandreled arch. The arch does not need to be based on a circle and can be a different curve, like part of an ellipse.  
  
An unkindness is a group of ravens. A murder is a group of crows, and there is also a flock of birds. I just liked this term. 


	30. Resignation

Outcasts  
  
30. Resignation  
  
Sister Ibuki rubbed at the spot of ink on her left hand.  
  
"Are you nervous?" her daemon chirped.  
  
"Sort of," the disheveled nun murmured. She suppressed a yawn.  
  
"Your hair is sticking up."  
  
"Where?" Ibuki answered excitedly. Her hands leapt to her head  
  
"Everywhere," the dove said sadly.  
  
"Oh," Ibuki replied despondently. Her hands fell to her sides. She slumped against a tunnel wall. She wrapped her arms around herself. A chill wind blew up from the nearby shaft. It carried a rotten odor. She stood directly beneath a pool anabaric light. Her sight fell onto the irregular pattern of stone in the ground; it was better than gazing into the dark lengths of the tunnel or shaft.  
  
Above ground, the six and six and six more bells tolled for the eighteenth hour. The sound reverberated gently down the shaft. Ritsuko's reply had told her meet her mentor there at the hour. Ibuki sighed. It was not as if the elder sister owed any obligation to her anymore.  
  
"Sister Ibuki," Ritsuko's voice echoed from behind her. "Sorry, but I was running a bit behind schedule, the staff has been pared down a bit."  
  
The younger sister squirmed with guilt. She had almost hoped that the elder sister would sound angry, but Akagi Ritsuko's voice was as calm as usual.  
  
"Ibuki," Ritsuko said. "I can't stop you if you really want to leave, but there is something that I want to show you, first. Why don't you hold onto this until then," she handed a long envelope to her protege. "By the way, your calligraphy is exceptionally neat."  
  
"Thank you," Ibuki replied.  
  
Wordlessly, Ritsuko turned and pulled on the lever mounted on the side of the shaft. Counterweights shifted overhead as a motor pumped and began moved the steel cables. An octagonal gondola rose. Ibuki hastily hauled open the door. Ritsuko gave her a sideways look before entering. Ibuki entered and slid the heavy door close. The gondola smelled fetid with rot. In the interior were racks of heavy cloaks, hoods, and wrap-around spectacles.  
  
"You might want to get your daemon under the cloak. It may smell bad in here, but it's nothing compared to the main cavern," the elder nun suggested.  
  
Ibuki nodded and complied. The rubbery cloak smothered her. Bulky gloves enclosed her hands. She exchanged her clogs for boots. The hood was made of a similar material, though the attached half mask was made from layers of a silky material. It smelled of chalk, some citrus, and at least a hint of ammonia. The round spectacles fit snugly over her eyes.  
  
"This should keep most of the mess off, but you and everyone around you will want you to bathe after this," Ritsuko warned as she pulled the lever to go descend. With a slight lurch, the chamber began its slow descent.  
  
"Where are we going?" Ibuki asked.  
  
The chamber was dimly lit from within. The anabaric lights from the levels splashed in through the front grill in thirty foot intervals. The continual hum had become oppressive, and the suits were becoming hot.  
  
The younger nun forced herself not to fidget. Her dove daemon flicked his wings as he hung onto the front of her kimono, underneath the heavy cloak.  
  
"I've never been in some of these areas," Ibuki said.  
  
"There has been recent construction."  
  
At two hundred plus feet below the earth, they stopped. Apprehensively, Ibuki followed her mentor into the lower tunnel. She would not have followed anyone else into those depths. Even through her mask, she could smell the powerful stench of the rot. Once they exited the gondola, the carriage rose again.  
  
They walked onto a steel platform. Beside the platform, great roaring fans and ducts blew forth a continual wind.  
  
Below lay what resembled a luminescent lake. The blue glow stretched to beyond the eye could see. Small dark shapes crawled in the light. They were workers, moving between the long rows of blue. Ritsuko descended the metal stairs. The stair case wended from stone plateau to metal landing to another plateau. Ibuki clung to the railing as they descended. She was drenched with sweat by the time they reached the cavern floor.  
  
Above, it was a lake of blue. Face to face, there were rows upon row of chest high stalks. Each stalk was encrusted by fuzzy patches of the luminescent material. At the base of the crops was soil.  
  
"What's that smell?" Ibuki asked.  
  
"A slurry of rotted leaves, dead animals, night soil, and anything else we could find."  
  
"Is this some kind of mold? Or fungus?" she queried pointing to a patch of the blue substance.  
  
"Not quite, believe it or not, it's more of a plant. If you look through closely enough, you'll see that it has miniscule buds and flowers. Here comes one now."  
  
Ibuki looked up to see a thumb-sized white shape flit between the plants. It lit quickly on a plant and then moved on again. The flyer came closer. It was a tiny bird whose wings fluttered in a blur. It stabbed into the patches of blue dozens of times. The bird was pure white, and had black bead eyes. It flitted away as quickly as it had come.  
  
"Where do these things come from?" the younger woman asked in wonder. "Why is Bishop Ikari growing all of this?"  
  
"Sorry, I shouldn't really tell you if you're leaving," Ritsuko answered.  
  
Ibuki's shoulders slumped.  
  
"But, I'll make an exception for you, look in your envelope after you leave here," Ritsuko added.  
  
=====  
  
Ritsuko had been right, Ibuki thought as she wrinkled her nose. She needed a bath, and the elder sister had conveniently enclosed instructions to meet her at an underground bathhouse. A pair of guards had thoroughly searched her and her small tub of effects at the door.  
  
Quickly, she stripped and washed herself efficiently. She took care to thoroughly shampoo her hair. She didn't want to make a bad impression. Or was it leave a bad impression? She wasn't sure anymore.  
  
After she had finished with the cleaning, she opened the door into the adjacent room and let out a cloud of steam and vapor. Ritsuko was already in the pool. Ibuki felt self-conscious. She pulled the door close and quickly plunged into the pool. Ibuki submerged her head under the surface of the hot water. The bottom and sides were tiled with colorful mosaic. She resurfaced to see Ritsuko swimming to a shelf on the side of the pool.  
  
Ibuki joined her with a few kicks and strokes.  
  
"Elder sister," Ibuki said.  
  
"At ease," Ritsuko quipped. "We can speak freely here. No one will overhear us."  
  
Ibuki craned and cracked the joints in her neck. She allowed herself relaxed slightly.  
  
"To your first question, where did it come from," the elder sister began abruptly. "It came from the Katsuragi expedition, when it visited the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexique. They found samples. They were dried out and preserved in urns. We managed to extract the building information to bring them back with other documents found in the same ruins."  
  
"Isn't that a cardinal sin?" Ibuki asked. "Using experimental theology to create life?"  
  
"Probably. But we think that we have a just cause, which leads into your second question, what is it for. We have called the grain: 'gloom mote.' The bioluminescent plants feed off of detritus and converts it to energy, which the grain plant uses to grow. The grain does not yield much; it is also bitter. But it grows quickly even in the worst soils and cold climates. It also requires very little light. In fact, too much light kill the symbiote.  
  
"The civilization found in the Yucatan was at least thirty thousand years old, far older than any settled people previously found. We believe that they survived a period of inclement climate by using this grain and growing strong while other groups died off.  
  
"I am glad that you saw what you saw last night. The tengu, insects, and third group were all representatives from sentient races. We have found traces of the tengu, but not the others. We believe that they were the remnants of the first rebels."  
  
"Rebels?" Ibuki pondered and then she remembered the boy's passionate words: 'the Authority shall not have the ultimate victory.'  
  
"Yes, the rebellion against the Creator."  
  
"But that was supposed to happen at the dawn of time."  
  
"Or so we've been told. We don't have all of the pieces ourselves. But that is what we are after, the technology that the rebels created. We have reason to believe that a Second Rebellion may be brewing. It will be a storm that will sweep this world. The repercussions of the war in Nippon fifty years ago will a gentle spring shower in comparison. To weather this, we propose to use the powers of those artifacts." 


	31. Meeting of Youths

Shinji sat in his bare-chest on the bunk. Ibuki lifted the boy's eyelid and shined the narrow white beam from the anabaric torch into his eye.  
  
"How is he?" Misato asked. The woman leaned against her bunk on the other side of the small cabin.  
  
"He seems normal," Ibuki declared as she removed the light from the boy's eye. "Do you feel any headaches? Disorientation? Any of the claustrophobia that you described earlier?" she asked the boy.  
  
"My stomach doesn't feel too good, sometimes," Shinji admitted.  
  
"That might be from sea sickness. Or it could be this foreign food," Ibuki said. She scribbled in her notebook with a fountain pen. "We'll continue to monitor it."  
  
Misato chewed her lower lip. "I still want to know what you did to him. Ritsuko didn't give me many details."  
  
"Neither was I," Ibuki answered. "We're done for today. You can get dressed," she mentioned to Shinji. "According to Sister Akagi, the solution contained memories extracted from a mummified 'tengu'. He gained those memories and lived those memories," the nun explained as she packed her satchel.   
  
"How do we know that it was safe?" Misato demanded. She glanced at the thin boy as he tucked his kimono into his coarse-weave pants.  
  
"I trust Sister Akagi's work," Ibuki stated resolutely  
  
"I don't doubt Ritsuko's abilities," Misato said. "But I have a hard time trusting Lord Ikari's intentions."  
  
"Thank you for your time," Ibuki bade stiffly. She heaved her black satchel after her. The door slammed close in her wake.  
  
"Why didn't you want me to tell her about the dreams?" Shinji asked.  
  
"They want those memories," Misato said. "And I suspect that you're the only one can unlock them. Intuition tells me to play with our cards held closely.  
  
"Why don't you go find Rei? You could use the air."  
  
"Misato, how are you feeling?"  
  
"I'm fine, thanks to you, but I have to take it easy for a bit," Misato replied as she unconsciously laid a her hand over her heart.  
  
Outcasts  
  
31. Meeting of Youths  
  
Asuka gave Siegsmyrth a boost into the night sky. The momentum carried her forward into the railing; she lifted herself onto the wood. She hung her body over the side, until her stomach felt pinched almost into two. Her daemon's cry was nearly lost in the sound of the water rasping against the hull of the trim clipper and the wind blowing against the sails and through the forest of masts and shrouding.   
  
Asuka kicked her booted feet as she stared at a clear moon undulating on the black waves. The clipper's shadow slid through the perfect silver disk.   
  
The baroness had quickly readjusted to the continuous bob and lurch of the ship's motion. It had taken her a little longer to stop noticing the scents of tar, salt water, rotten fish, and sweaty sailors, but the ripe scents had also faded.   
  
The weather had already grown warmer as the ship plowed south and west, but the baroness still donned a woolen dress and a hooded cloak against the chill. They had left port three nights and days before. Land had long sunk beyond the horizon and out of sight, leaving the ocean unbroken and vast. Where the dark water ended, the night sky began, crowded with stars.  
  
Asuka indifferently noted the bright stars that formed Orion's belt and Betelgeuse. Polaris was where it always was. The forlorn lights looked lonely. The girl let herself down from the railing as her daemon swooped back onto her armored arm. The hawk daemon's talons gripped her bracer with reassuring pressure. She pulled her cloak closer around herself.  
  
"See anything interesting?" Asuka asked.  
  
"Not really," the daemon answered. "It is strange flying at night. There were some sailors in the masts, but none of their daemons wanted to race."  
  
"How boring," Asuka answered. "And Hikari's always early to bed, early to rise."  
  
"Makes a man healthy, wealthy and despised."  
  
"I'm going to walk around the ship," Asuka announced. She couldn't sleep. She was cooped up all day in their cabin and had no way to get out her excess energy. It was that or practice swordsplay in the hold with the perverted galoot Suzuhara. She wouldn't have minded learning a bit from Shigeru, but he was busy planning their hasty journey. The older samurai, Mr. Avery, Mr. Kaji, and Misato continually poured over maps. They had not invited her to their meetings. She wasn't overly concerned with logistics, though.  
  
Asuka made her way around the neat and organized deck.  
  
She wished that she could spend more time with Mr. Kaji, but he only had eyes for that Misato. Well, a woman like that could only keep a man's attention one way, and that would wear out soon enough, Asuka concluded with satisfaction. Mr. Avery was a bore. As a representative of the General Oblation Board and the Church, the baroness steered clear the man. That left the twins.  
  
She had not met the girl, but the boy could be interesting. He had been able to pluck the strangest images from the air. Was he a conjurer? He was better than any of the illusionists on the boulevards of Paris or under the Big Top. If he wasn't, then what was he?Could that thing have been real? That thing had looked at her, she was sure of it. She had felt it. Those four glowing green eyes had looked around and locked onto her. It was impossible. Sister Akagi had explained that those were memories from an old civilization. That gaze would have to search through time to have found her. Her spine shivered at the idea of the alien lifeform reaching across the dark empty space of millenia. She wanted to believe it, but the whole story still seemed crazy.  
  
The expedition was getting better every time. Sister Akagi had explained that they were secretly trying to obtain the ancient artifacts that were left behind by civilizations that were older than man. From what she could glean, they were headed toward the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexique. They would forge through tropical jungle, encounter the skraeling natives. She had heard that they still resented the Spanish and French descended rulers. She imagined infiltrating an ancient heathen temple, bypassing hordes of spear and torch toting skraelings. That was still weeks away, she sighed.  
  
"Maybe they are out here," Asuka whispered. The weird twins wouldn't dare go out by day. Maybe they spent time outside during the night.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"You know, THEM. The twins."   
  
"Are you sure that you want to run into THEM? I mean humans without daemons, gives me the shivers," the daemon whispered.  
  
"There's nothing to be scared of."  
  
"Why are we whispering?"  
  
"I'm not sure," Asuka said. Her eyes shifted around, in case the twins were in ear shot.  
  
Asuka complete a circuit around the ordered deck. The coiled ropes and occasional crate and cask were all out of the way of traffic. The sailors all ignored her, but she expected it. She glanced up at the web-like shrouds and platforms among the masts, but didn't see any silhouettes that looked like children. Asuka descended below the deck into quiet and still air. She followed her memories through the dim corridors back to their cabin.  
  
A lump slept against the door to the her cabin. It was that ridiculous samurai Touji; he refused to stop guarding Hikari's door, even while asleep. His legs were drawn against his chest. He held his sheathed blade tip to the floor, hilt against his shoulder, and the blade turned up. Hikari had dozed in the same position. The samurai slept with a thin blanket drawn around his shoulders. His daemon curled around him to the far side from Asuka.  
  
Asuka drew closer. His hair had grown back past a stubble underneath his bandanna. He looked completely different when he was asleep. Awake, Asuka saw him as a leering and arrogant, much like most men. His expression was dignified and sad. The samurai's lips moved. Two syllables, it sounded like "Li-an".  
  
Asuka heard a door swing from behind. She quickly spun around. From the corner of her eye, she saw the pale flash of a kimono entering the room. The athletic girl swiftly caught the door and held it open. Asuka stepped around the door to see a surprised boy at the doorway; he tried to tug the door close. He was a slight boy. His face and hands were framed with delicate bones that made him seem feminine.  
  
Her eyes reflexively searched for a daemon, but did not sense or see one. The alien sight made her feel queasy.  
  
"I-I didn't see anything," he said immediately.  
  
"What?" Asuka asked.  
  
"Between you and him," the boy said as his eyes flicked between the baroness and the warrior. He tried to tug the door close again.  
  
Asuka reared in surprise. She pulled in a breath to snap at him, but held it in. It would bring the adults running, and this was a chance to talk to him alone. "I wanted to talk to you, may I come in?"  
  
The boy glanced into the room. Beyond the doorway, a pale girl sat on a low bunk in the warm radiance of a wax candle.  
  
"Sure," the boy said. He stood aside to let the baroness in.  
  
Asuka unceremoniously shucked off her coat and dumped in onto a chest. She sat on a bunk facing the albino girl. Again, the reflexive search for a daemon left her feeling vaguely nauseated. The Deutsch girl usually took every chance to see the circus shows in America. She had reveled in the sight of the Siamese twins, the mummy, and the man who bit heads off live chickens. There was even a grown man who suspended his full weight with fishing hooks embedded in his skin. The guillotining of a heretic in Cologne hadn't made her flinch. This was a bit much, though.  
  
Her brother took a seat close to the pale girl.  
  
"My name is Shinji," the boy said. "This is Rei."  
  
"You can call me Asuka," the baroness offered generously. Asuka noted that the pale girl ignored her.  
  
Rei seemed to be fiddling with an battered tin watch. She seemed engrossed in turning the knobs. Must be touched in the head, Asuka concluded.  
  
"You said that you wanted to talk to me?" Shinji asked.  
  
"Yes," Asuka responded. "Why don't you have a daemon?" slipped out of her mouth before she could chew the words over.  
  
"We're actually trying to find an answer to that right now," the boy replied. "Rei?"  
  
"One moment," the girl answered in a lotus eater cadence. Rei turned several dials on the watch and then waited. She leaned toward Shinji to show him the device. "See that? The for bird is for soul or daemon. And the crucible means a mixing it says our daemons are intertwined. My daemon is in you, and your daemon is in me."  
  
"It looks like mother was right," Shinji added.  
  
"What is that?" the red-haired girl asked, craning her neck. "It looks like a crappy old watch to me."  
  
"It answers questions," Rei said.  
  
"Can I see it?" Asuka asked, rising from the bunk and craning her neck. Rei glanced at Shinji. The boy slowly nodded. The pale girl deposited the circular object into her hand. It felt heavy.  
  
Everything about it looked and felt ugly. The glass was distorted. The knobs and numerous dents were clogged with dirt and rust. Her skin crawled as she touched it, as if it had been dipped in raw sewage. She quickly pushed it back into Rei's hand.  
  
"Still looks like junk to me," Asuka insisted.  
  
The boy raised an eyebrow. "If you say so."  
  
"And I say so. So, answer me this, then, oh Cassandra," the baroness said expansively. Her daemon launched from her wrist to a low slung beam as she swung out her arms for emphasis. "Why are we being sent on this expedition? Why not grown-ups?"  
  
Again, Rei fiddled with the device. In a few moments, she had her answer. "We are offerings."  
  
"Sacrifices?' Asuka said incredulously.  
  
"What does that mean?" Shinji asked in a resigned tone.  
  
"We will become offerings to altars dedicated to an ancient war. What is an oriflamme?" Rei stumbled as she pronounced the foreign word.  
  
"A standard," the red-haired girl added. She was half fascinated by the spiel, but half annoyed that she would consider taking a charlatan seriously. It was nothing but a piece of junk.  
  
"The offerings will be the standards, seeds for a new prayer. The altars for the offerings are called Evangelions," the second foreign word fit awkwardly into Rei's mouth. "Three shall be the number altars upon the left hand of the children. Three shall be the dark materials wielded in the right hands. From the dark materials shall come new worlds."  
  
"Sounds like a load of bull's crap to me," Asuka scoffed.  
  
"If you say so," the boy repeated, but his eyes were glued to the device.  
  
"If you say so," Asuka echoed mockingly.  
  
"You asked a question, and it was answered," the boy stated. "Was that what you wanted to ask?"  
  
Was he dismissing HER? she seethed. Not exactly, it was more as if he were tired. She pushed the tiresome thoughts of etiquette aside. "No, I had another question."  
  
"You may not like the answer," Shinji sighed.  
  
"I am well aware of that," Asuka replied loftily. "When we were in the forest, there was a monstrous mass. It was a vast egg of something like that."  
  
"I don't remember it," the boy answered.  
  
"You're not getting off the hook that easily," the red-head groused.  
  
"Honestly, the whole thing is a blur right now. Sakura told me about it, so I remember."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Really."  
  
Asuka fell quiet, stymied. She tapped her chin with one hand.  
  
"I have an idea, have you heard of mesmerism?" the Deutsch girl asked. 


	32. Emergence

Outcasts  
  
32. Emergence  
  
Rei recalled the ghastly procession that had crawled and hovered through her half-waking dreams. After a week, the visions still unsettled her, especially since other had seen the apparent nightmare. Now, the foreign girl wanted her brother to remember more of the night, and Rei did not like that.  
  
Along with a migraine, the experience had left changes Shinji's mind. Normally, tight shells of privacy, questing strands open to new sensations, and spiderwebs of reason defined the lay of the boy's will. The new twisted structures resembled deep pools colored with hues that descended to an inscrutable black. Rei shivered when she peered into the forbidding depths.  
  
Ikari Gendou had given Shinji the memories. While the Church woman had served the drink, her father had ordered it. The thought lit on her mind time and again, though she constantly shoo'ed it away.  
  
Rei focused her attention to the Deutsch girl at the opposite side of the cabin. She sat on the rough hewn bunk, bedecked in the gloom cast by the remaining half taper. Asuka's hands were curled and receded in the cuffs of her dress. The hunter-green sleeves bore splayed iron crosses for cufflinks. On the right breast, a war eagle spread its wings of tight black stitches. Another pair of iron crosses decorated the mandarin-style collar. The severe cuts of the ensemble squared and flattened the curves of the Deutsch girl's figure.  
  
The foreigner's prominent nose and matted red hair reminded Rei of a fox. Even her musky scent was reminiscent of spoor.  
  
Through her second sight, Rei saw the buzz of activity simmering in stranger's mind; each mood shift registered in the glaring eyes and constantly mobile eyebrows and mouth. She did not trust this strange guest and hoped that the interview would end soon. Rei wanted to ask the golden compass about the fox girl, but the more pressing concern was before her.  
  
"I don't follow," Shinji answered the stranger.  
  
"Trust me, I know what I'm doing," the girl insisted. Her hands had emerged from their hiding places to flick and chop in accompaniment to her lecture. "The human mind is made of different layers, the layer that dreams, the layer that acts, the layer that thinks, and the layer that second guesses; some people call that the conscious. All I have to do is bring you closer to the dreaming mind, it's a cinch," she pronounced with a snap of her fingers. "I've seen it done before."  
  
"Then you're saying that you've never done this before," Shinji replied.  
  
"I said that I can do it, and I can," the orange-maned foreigner declared, her voice rising.  
  
"If we don't need to do this, then we shouldn't," Rei added.  
  
"You stay out of this, abominable snow-girl," Asuka snapped.  
  
"There's no need-" Shinji began, his voice had also risen in volume. This did not happen often. Her brother tended to grow more quiet, not louder during arguments. This was over nonsense, and not worth the frantic buzz in his mind. Rei touched her brother on the arm to transmit a calming thought.  
  
"Look," Asuka cut in. She rose to her full five foot two height. "If it were my mind, I would want to know what was going on. What if it's harmful and we don't know it, yet. Sister Ibuki said that they didn't know all of the effects. If we catch it earlier, we can do something about it, right?"  
  
Shinji considered her words.  
  
"Well?" Asuka demanded.  
  
"It makes sense," he said dubiously.  
  
"Of course it does. You don't have anything to loose. Like I said, it's completely harmless. Just sit back and relax," the stranger insisted. She reached into her mass of locks and drew out a chain of gold; a cross glimmered from the lowest link.  
  
"Remember just sit back and relax. Even an absolute buffoon could do it," Asuka instructed. With a jerk of her hand, she sent the chain swinging. "Follow the motion of the pendant with your eyes, and you should begin to get sleepy."  
  
"Sleepy? How am I going to answer any questions if I'm asleep?" Shinji asked.  
  
"Dummy!" Asuka snapped. Her hand jerked again and sent the gold cross twirling like a wind-blown seed. "You're not going to BE asleep, you're going to come close to it. You can't relax if you're asking so many questions."   
  
In the low-slung beams overhead, the hawk daemon flipped his wings.  
  
"Okay, just calm down," the boy answered as he settled back down.  
  
Asuka stilled the thin gold cross with her free hand and then sent the pendulum back into its swing. Back and forth, it swung: high, low, high, and back again. Shinji followed the cross under the mesmer's glare. Almost imperceptibly, his thoughts began to uncoil and detension from loops and knots into parallel bundles. High, low, high, and back again, the rhythm continued. His breathing began to slow.  
  
"You are getting sleepy," the red-head intoned sonorously. "You... are... falling... under... my... spell..."  
  
"Spell, you didn't say anything about that," Shinji protested.  
  
Asuka gave a snarl of frustration and smashed her fists onto her thigh. Guttural foreign phrases and sharp words spat from her lips.  
  
"I thought you said that a buffoon could do it."  
  
"Then you're worse than one!" Asuka shouted. "Why can't you relax?"  
  
Shinji bit back his response when someone thumped on the wall.  
  
"Look at what you did, you disturbed Hikari," Asuka added in a stage whisper.  
  
"Me?"  
  
Rei watched the effects of the exchange. Shinji did not respond so strongly to Misato or even Sakura; his mind curled in defensive shells from the fiery girl's words. For some reason, this stranger was able to easily get a rise out of her brother.  
  
"Shinji," Rei interrupted.  
  
He stopped to listen.  
  
"Do you really want to see it? Again?"  
  
He nodded.  
  
"You don't even know what you're doing," Asuka protested, but they ignored her. She interrupted her next interruption with a breath expelled through her bangs; her eyes rolled in frustration.  
  
Rei ignored Asuka's histrionics as she turned the dials of the golden compass. Over the past week, she had learned that the device was forgiving. The symbol reader responded to her intentions as much as it did her motions.  
  
The red-haired girl had said "under my spell"; the words recalled the image of a marionette dancing on the long fingers of the puppeteer at an Edo market. The long hand settled on the stringed puppet. Rei remembered that their mother had let Shinji play with the golden compass as a child. The second needled stopped at the character for the babe. The third arm stopped at the stringed and round instrument that resembled a long-necked samishen. Music was the most relaxing symbol.  
  
Rei sat up to show Shinji the face of the compass. Usually, the symbol reader fed images and impressions to the holder. This time, it sent out a stream of serene impressions to Shinji as its arms swung between the tree, the sun, and the hive. Rei felt a phantom touch. A woman cradled Shinji. Branches swayed gently overhead in the wind. The mild air was redolent with pollen. An ungainly dumbledore buzzed its monotonous song as it bumbled from flower to flower. It was a early summer's day. Specks of sunlight slipped between the fingers of the tree's leaves.  
  
The furry bee landed on Shinji's small hand. The boy's questing fingers almost closed, innocent of the danger. A soft touch stilled his fingers, two grown fingertips. The still seven fingers matched the quiet bee. The trio played a pause for four rises and falls of the placid breeze before the dumbledore flew off. The caress lingered.  
  
Rei broke free of the trance as the Deutsch girl's loud footfalls approached. Asuka waved a hand before the boy's slack face.  
  
"Well, I'll be," Asuka said. "Are you there?"  
  
"Yes," Shinji answered in a distant voice. Though she touched his arm, he felt as if he were miles away. Rei's stomach knotted and her chest tightened.  
  
"Will you answer my questions?" Asuka continued.  
  
"Yes," the boy answered.  
  
"Good, do you remember what happened in the pine forest, seven days ago?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Were you that bird-like creature, for that time?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Where did they come from, the- the Tengu?"  
  
"From a world that orbited a brighter sun."  
  
"How did they get here?" Asuka asked excitedly.  
  
"By crafts that crossed the Void."  
  
"There was also an army of insects, what were they?"  
  
"Allies."  
  
"Were did they come from?"  
  
"The roots of a great tree that ringed yet another sun."  
  
The baroness's eyes gleamed. A smile played at her lips. Her voice stretched taut.  
  
"At the end of the formation, there was a massive object being dragged by hundreds of the insects, what was it?"  
  
"An egg."  
  
"What was inside of it?"  
  
"I cannot answer that."  
  
"Why not?" Asuka pressed hotly.  
  
"Because, I do not know. She did not tell me."  
  
"Who is she?"  
  
"She, whose memories I share."  
  
"Would she know?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
As the boy spoke, his mind remained as loose and flat as his voice. The pattern of his thoughts resembled a limp net. The dark pools remained, twisting the mental fabric around them.  
  
"Can I speak to her?" Asuka asked.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I don't know," the boy repeated.  
  
The interrogator felt silent as she chewed her lower lip. Rei understood what the next step would be; Asuka's questions had made it clear.  
  
"Don't," Rei interjected.  
  
"Why not?"  
  
Rei couldn't answer, but she did not want them to continue.  
  
"How could memories hurt anyone?" Asuka scoffed. She turned back to Shinji. "Let me speak to her," the young noblewoman ordered.  
  
Shinji went limp. He slumped away from the albino girl. Rei tentatively touched his shoulder. He didn't respond. His mind stayed lax. Without warning, one of the dark spots began to expand. Rei's eyes locked on it helplessly as it grew. From the depths, an indistinct form surged upward, writhing and burrowing. She threw the force of her will against the annelid shape, but it brushed off her strike.  
  
The dark mass continued it slithering from its deep delve. It broke surface, and the utter blackness fanned out to blot out her entire second sight; the darkness smothered any light from her brother's mind. Rei gasped as her brother's hand shot to his shoulder to clamp over her hand. It hurt, he had never hurt her before. Before she could utter his name, the boy turned around.   
  
He looked at her without recognition. He looked at her as a complete stranger.  
  
Rei could no longer feel Shinji's presence. She felt her consciousness slip away as breathtaking coldness gripped her torso and then spread to her heads and limbs. Rei heard Asuka gasp as the alien intelligence turned to her. The albino girl immersed in the paralyzing cold, until a mental push sent her mind tumbling into freefall.  
  
=====  
  
Asuka backed up in spite of herself. Whatever looked at her out of the boy's eyes was not human. He extended a hand toward her; it seemed to grasp air, but a powerful grip clamped around her brain. The grip halted her throat and trapped her body. It squeezed and wracked her mind until it struck a deep trigger. Asuka felt her body go limp. She landed roughly on the bunk before slumping in a deep trance.  
  
The boy retracted his arm to examine it. The leader of the Malachites surveyed the rest of her awkward new body. She picked at the fragments from the boy's dormant will for memories in the ruins and what had just passed. The feelings of panic closed in on her again, but she pushed them back: there was no time for it. The rocking of the ship helped to alleviate the strange feeling of a solid ground. Her host's mind could not sustain her awakening. The altered thought patterns and perceptions would drive him mad.  
  
The Speaker had been a leader of her people, an race that had traveled the stars millenia ago. It was far advanced to the person that she occupied. She had been chosen for the ability to make decisions quickly and reach a consensus in the flock. The Speaker chose her course of action: hibernation. There was nothing to be gained by loosing her host. She would crawl back into her deep pool, watching and waiting.  
  
First, she had to hide her presence. The Speaker turned to the unconscious albino female. Her memories would have to be altered. The same went for the other female. The Speaker glanced down at the shape in the girl's hand. The cross that broke wings, it was the symbol of sacrifice, the symbol of she who was flung to the unforgiving earth.  
  
"She has been here, too," the Speaker said through the boy's lips.  
  
The leader of the Tengu set about her work.  
  
=====  
  
Unknown even to the Speaker, another being watched. The apparition appeared briefly at the edge of the candlelight. Her lithe spectral form had solidified from rage. The entity that had been Ikari Yui forced herself back to invisibility as she watched her son's body being possessed.  
  
It took all of her willpower to not intervene. There was nothing she could do, but wait and watch. After all, the event was planned and accounted for.  
  
=====  
  
Shinji slouched against Rei. The candle had waned to a quarter of its height. The Deutsch girl had just resumed her seat after an extended bout of cross waving. He gave out a large yawn. Rei let out a similar exhalation and then rubbed her tired eyes.  
  
"I'm tired," the boy said as he covered his mouth against another yawn. "Maybe we should try this another night."  
  
"I can't understand why it didn't work," the red-headed girl complained. She fought off a yawn. "OK, I'll get it another night. Gute Nacht," she bid as she rose to exit the room. 


	33. Bonds of the Children

Asuka rapped on the cabin door before letting herself into the cramped cabin. On top of a closed chest, a wax taper flared briefly from the draft. Hikari meditated by the dancing light. The girl's eyes were closed and legs crossed. Her ermine daemon lay prostrate on the stiff mattress with his paws folded in front of him as if in prayer.  
  
The unstrung bow lay across her lap. The reversed curvature reminded Asuka of a Tartar bow at the Vienna Museum. The archer had to pull the limb to past straight and into a curve to string the weapon. While the shape was familiar, the surface of the bow lay wreathed in shadows, as if it were untouched by the candle's flame.  
  
Hikari opened her eyes.  
  
"Hello, Asuka," Hikari said.  
  
"Just came to get something," Asuka replied.  
  
"Was there something that you wanted to ask me?"  
  
"Nothing much. I wondered what that bow is made of."  
  
"Dragon bone," her friend responded seriously.  
  
"How do you know?" Asuka asked. She blinked owlishly.  
  
"Because Lady Hayako told me."  
  
"Really." Asuka said. She recalled that at the inn, the old monk had spoken of a Horaki Hayako that lived centuries before.  
  
"Yes, in a dream."  
  
Asuka hid the shiver that trickled down her spine. Her friend's voice had been perfectly sincere. She knew that Hikari would not lie to impress her. Asuka's precocious mind juxtaposed Hayako's white figure, who looked like Hikari, with the boy's visions. Memories refused to stay buried; they always did.  
  
Sophistry, Asuka dismissed. Her mind gamed with coincidences and supposition. The past built the foundations for the present, and she had little use for the past.  
  
Asuka hauled a iron-banded trunk away from the wall. She open the top to rummage past layers of wool and cotton for a spyglass.  
  
"You have been spending a lot of time with that boy and girl," Hikari commented.  
  
"Just passing the time," Asuka replied.  
  
"It's good to establish trust with our companions," Hikari stated. "We don't know when we might need that trust."  
  
"Yes, it is convenient," Asuka said without thinking.  
  
"Good night," Hikari bid.  
  
Asuka slipped out into the hallway without answering.  
  
33. Bonds of the Children  
  
Asuka emerged from the clipper's stuffy confines. A wan moon glowed in a cloud strewn sky. A brisk breeze tingled against her face. Irritably, she flicked away the strands of hair that blew into her eyes. Siegsmyrth flapped down to her arm from the crosspiece that he had been perched upon.  
  
Asuka was not happy with her response to Hikari's comment. Hikari's tone had been cold, as if the girl had commented on buying a dress. But Asuka was more irritated with her own response.   
  
It is convenient, those had been Aunt Caroline's words. Unconsciously, Asuka touched her brow; the brow of Caroline Asuka von Langstein, how she hated the name.  
  
Aunt Caroline's name had been dribbled her brow with baptismal water. Aunt Caroline's name was smeared into her forehead with olid oil during confirmation. Aunt Caroline who had order the butlers to tiptoe across the carpeted and carefully mitered corridors. The corridors were lined with window ruled so severely that they became tedious picture frames for the equally tedious grounds.  
  
Weak moonlight had leaked through the windows that evening. Asuka had walked down one of those corridors to meet Winifrid. The big girl had begun the change to womanhood. Around a bend in the hallway, Asuka heard Winifrid's plaintive voice.  
  
"Mother, I feel dizzy."  
  
Asuka heard a loud slap as hand met flesh.  
  
"Dumb cow!" Winifrid's mother snapped. "You think that you play with her because you want to?"  
  
Asuka had frozen. The matronly woman's voice was coarse, unlike the quiet hum that floated through doorway as the maid tidied the her bedchamber or brought tea. The willowy child returned to her room by the way she had come, slipping away like a shadow, quiet and feeling bodiless. She sat unmoving on an unyielding chair of hardwood until the clocks clamored at the seventh hour. A maidservant brought a perfumed note from her Aunt. Asuka read it before allowing the servant to secure the tight layers of cloth around her.  
  
At supper, she sat rigidly laced in petty coats. Siegsmyrth had forced his shape into a red fox; a falcon was deemed to be unfeminine.   
  
The dim and densely furnished room was full of dolls. Small and large ones in the cabinets, which lined the room. In the shadows, hundreds of eyes peered at the girl. A porcelain guest sat across from the child. Baron Werlenberg towered over the table and stared down at the young baroness. White-skinned Werlenberg occupied the seat of honor at Aunt Caroline's right. His grinning teeth had the sheen, grain, yellowing, and even crook of a man a few years past his prime. His fingernails were neatly trimmed to leave small crescents of white. The doll was dressed in a old fashioned coat with tails, breeches, and a powdered wig. A stuffed hound sat on his haunches; Werlenberg's daemon. His unblinking eyes were the most unnerving detail. They were glassy but seemed real, to the last red vein. A bowl of untouched soup sat steaming before him.   
  
From the corner of her eyes, young Asuka saw two other tall and still silhouettes. She tried to ignore all three porcelain guests.  
  
Butlers stirred from the darkness to clear the soup and soup spoons from five settings.   
  
"It is unusual that you would choose to dine with us, young lady," the heavily jowled grand dame pronounced. When dining, Aunt Caroline had permitted discourse only between victuals. It prevented the felony of speaking with one's mouth full, which was never committed by Aunt Caroline's regular companions. "Especially upon such short notice."  
  
"Perhaps I do not dine with you often enough, Aunt Caroline," Asuka responded. She tried to smile, but her expression twisted into a grimace.  
  
"I presume that you have a purpose in mind."  
  
"Yes, ma'am, " Asuka answered blandly. "Did you order Winifrid to play with me, ma'am?"  
  
"Of course, because it is convenient," Aunt Caroline had answered just before the stuffed truffles had arrived.  
  
The memory still brought flames to her cheeks. Asuka tamped down her irritation. It was bad enough to be bothered by the memories in the first place. It was worse to let them linger. She was no longer shut up in that dreary house.  
  
"I am free upon the open sea!" Asuka declared fiercely to the open water. She punched the sky with her fists at the declaration and managed to upset Siegmyrth. The daemon leapt from her arm to flap to a nearby railing. He flipped his wings indignantly at her. Asuka's ignored the stinging from the talon cuts. The girl glared out at the black waters that rasped against the hull below as if daring the waves to contradict her.  
  
"Why, so you are," a boy's voice commented from behind her.  
  
She jumped in placed, and then spun around.  
  
"Don't sneak up me like that," Asuka snapped.  
  
"You walked right in front of us," the boy protested softly.  
  
His sister stared with her red eyes. The twins huddled in a nest of burlap bags. They leaned against a crates stacked two high, which buffered them against the wind.  
  
"Well, whatever," Asuka dismissed magnanimously. While her wandering feet had brought her to their hiding spot, it was still no excuse to startle her. She would allow it to slide, just this once. "I brought my seeing glass," she said. She extended the instrument and then began to survey the horizon.  
  
A rustle of fabric told her that the boy had risen; the girl wouldn't approach unless her brother did first. All she could see was black water. She hoped that they would be able to see a sign of land, but it was probably a few hours away. Asuka collapsed the glass. She half turned to hand it to him.  
  
"Don't drop it," she added.  
  
Shinji joined the Deutsch girl at the railing. The baroness was in the habit of studying others and jotting down their appearance in her mind. Being a noble meant knowing many people and needing to know who to favor and who to snub. Her eyes flicked to his face. Shinji was plain, a little dull even. His face was finely shaped. His mobile mouth was curved downward as if in a small frown. His blue eyes stood out on his Asiatic face. Those eyes expressed surprise and bewilderment; they held flashes of irritation and anger. Asuka searched for fear. Winifrid had learned fear and learned to cloak the fear beneath blandness, but her eyes still showed it.   
  
"I can't see a thing," Shinji said as he lowered the glass.  
  
Asuka studied him as he looked toward her. His eyes looked at her steadily, free of the fear.  
  
"Dummy," Asuka drawled. "You're holding it backward."  
  
She reversed the glass in his hands.  
  
"Oh," Shinji replied.  
  
"How could you get it wrong?" Asuka asked with exaggerated exasperation.  
  
"It was the way you handed it to me," the boy complained. He reversed the glass before scanning around again. "I can see sea and sky. The sea is asleep."  
  
"Asleep? What do you mean?"  
  
"Like the way an animal sleeps."  
  
"How can a sea be asleep?" Asuka asked.  
  
"Well, maybe not the sea itself, but all water is full of small life. Misato told me about it, once."  
  
Asuka considered the depths. There was plankton and algae out there. Algae was active during the day and slowly transpired by night, when the life-giving sun was down. She reluctantly concluded that The sea could be sleeping.  
  
"So you can see that?" Asuka asked with real interest. She craned her neck to examine the water more closely. "What does it look like?"  
  
"Sakura asked me that once. A little like strands and bits of light. There are mats of lights on the water, and small dots. In a tree, they go from the roots up and back down. In a person, they come out of the heart and head and back again. In an animal, it's more from the heart. If I look long enough, sometimes I can see strands made up of smaller strands."  
  
"Who's Sakura?" she asked casually.  
  
"A friend," Shinji answered. "She lives with Misato."  
  
"Is Misato like your mother?"  
  
"Not really. Misato helped raised us when we were little. I don't remember much from that time."  
  
"How much do you remember?" Asuka asked. She turned up her collar against the cooling air.  
  
"Rei remembers more than I do. Rei?"  
  
The albino girl joined them to her brother's right, on the far side from the red-haired girl. Shinji passed the spyglass to her. The pale girl recited dryly as she took her turn with the seeing glass.  
  
"We lived in a castle of stone. There was mother and father and Misato. Mother was gone and then Misato left. Then we lived in a house in the woods with an old woman. The woman died. We left her and lived in different places. We learned to hide. We learned to hide on trains.  
  
"When winter came, we came onto the Horaki lands. We knew a woman who lived there. She gave us a place to sleep and food to eat. The cook told us where we were. While there, the Horaki woman was hurt and Shinji helped her. We were seen and chase away. We nearly died in the snow. The cold and snow broke, and we managed to find another train further south. We came upon a lake. It was near a town, but no one would come close to the lake. We lived there for several turnings of the seasons, eating what we could find. Sometimes there wasn't much food. We moved again to Edo, where we met Misato again," Rei concluded.  
  
"Your sister can make adventures sound like an audit of the Deutsch Bank," Asuka remarked tartly. Her fingers had tapped impatiently at the railing throughout the ghostly girl's bloodless telling. The two might be high born, but they weren't raised like blue blooded brats; they'd been castoffs. She made a mental note to ask Hikari about the twins.  
  
"Adventure?" Shinji said. "We were just hungry most of the time."  
  
"Surviving in the wilderness as abandoned children. It's straight out of a Grimm tale. Trust me, it's better than stuffy tutors, and stuffier governesses, and sitting down to tea in clothes starched to the point where you can't breathe."  
  
"How were you brought up?"  
  
"Boring," Asuka stated. "So boring that I'm surprised that I'm the person that I'm today. That doesn't quite answer my question, what is Misato to you?"  
  
"I'm not sure," Shinji answered. "I remember what a mother is like, a little. Misato isn't like mother, but we didn't have any aunts, cousins or anyone like that, so I wouldn't know what to compare it to. You're full of questions tonight."  
  
"It's something to do," Asuka said flippantly.  
  
"Oh," the boy said. He sounded a little disappointed.  
  
"By the way," Asuka plunged on. "What else can you do? I mean, your pale shadow said that you helped a woman. I mean how? Is is connected to your sight?"  
  
"I don't remember the Horakis too clearly, but when someone gets hurt, strands break. If someone is tired, the threads fray. The strands can be mended. It's tiring though."  
  
"Can you heal a cut?" Asuka asked. She showed him the scabbed over talon cuts.  
  
"How did that happen?" Shinji asked as he examined the angry lines.  
  
"Siegsmyrth got startled."  
  
"You threw me off," the daemon shot back.  
  
"I didn't know that your daemon could hurt you," Shinji added.  
  
"It happens. Well, can you?"  
  
"Well, it's not deep. Hold still," the boy answered as he took her arm in his hand.   
  
Asuka flinched from his touch, though it was light. She stilled herself, and he began again. A gentle warmth caressed the cuts. The heat was as gentle as a bath. There was also the feeling of being swept by a perfectly pitched spring breeze. The heat soothed the residual stinging. Soon, the cuts began to itch.  
  
"Hold still," Shinji suggested as the girl reached to scratch her arm.  
  
The warmth increased at a lower rate. The itching dulled. Moments later, the boy pulled his hand away. Asuka examined the scabs. She brushed at them lightly, and the dried blood crumbled into rusty debris, revealing newborn skin underneath.  
  
"Not bad," the baroness admitted.  
  
"There's something out there," Rei interjected.  
  
"Is it a whale?" Shinji asked. His gaze followed the direction of her spyglass past the aft of the ship.  
  
Asuka looked as well. There weren't any lights, but a ship or airship could run without lights. If it was running without lights, it was an enemy. Or could it be a submersible? A surfacing submersible meant a battle.  
  
"Is it a ship? A dirigible?" Asuka asked excitedly.  
  
"No," Rei answered. "It's not an animal. It's not a person. It's more like that angel." 


	34. Shades of Unseen Light

Author's Note: This Shinji is closer to the Shinji found later in manga.  
  
Shinji took the spyglass from Rei's hands and looked to the aft of the ship. He rubbed the lense clear of sea spray with the sleeve of his kimono. Something plowed white foam onto the water's surface. His second sight detected the same alien lifeforce as the other angels. From its course, it seemed to be following them.  
  
"Give me that," the red head demanded as she snatched the glass out of his hands. "There is something out there," she confirmed.  
  
Shinji refrained from commenting on her rudeness, there were more important matters.  
"We should tell Misato," Shinji suggested. "Then maybe we should consult the Compass."  
  
The Deutsch girl mulled over his words. Without the spyglass, he could not see their pursuer, but he could not help but to peered into the darkness. Asuka's lips twisted in a satisfied grin. Shinji felt his stomach instinctively begin to unsettle.  
  
"I have a better idea," Asuka announced. "Let's bring it to Mr. Kaji."  
  
Outcasts 34. Shades of Unseen Light  
  
They picked their way around the dozing samurai. He stirred as Asuka knocked on the next door; a blond Briton fitted in broadcloth answered. He looked over his ample stomach at the children through a pair of circular spectacles. Shinji shifted from foot to foot as the man and hound daemon examined him. "May I help you?" the man asked in precise Nipponese.  
  
"We have a message for Mr. Kaji," Asuka said. Her eyes roved around the small cabin. "He doesn't seem to be here."  
  
"He is next door, consulting with Mz. Katsuragi," the Briton said.  
  
"Please excuse us, then," Shinji answered swiftly with a slight bow. He moved to knock at the next door.  
  
"With Katsuragi?" Asuka asked. "Alone? What could this mean?"  
  
"I think you're reading too much into this," Ibuki suggested from within.  
  
Asuka barged past Shinji to get at the door. At the same moment, Misato pulled the door open.  
  
"What's all the-" Misato began.  
  
The woman jumped back as Shinji fell through the open doorway. His arms windmilled for balanced and caught onto Asuka's forearm. Asuka yelped as he dragged her down. Siegsmyrth shrieked as he took to wing. Shinji impacted onto the board floor with a loud thud. He was squashed by a second impact as Asuka sprawled on top of him. She exploded into a furry of red clad slapping and pushing arm.  
  
"Idiot!" Asuka shouted. "Pervert! Libertine!"  
  
Shinji's face was raked by an open handed blow. Four lines stung along his right cheek. He dodged away from her. Kaji helped a red faced Asuka to her feet before pushing the door close. Her flushed face almost matched the dark red of her dress. Her narrow chest and shoulders heaved. Shinji took a hand from Rei to stand. His fingers explored the welts and came back tipped with blood. He matched her glare. Misato steered his chin toward her with her forefingers. Her dark eyes ran over the wound.  
  
"Doesn't look too bad, though it could ruin your pretty face," his guardian pronounced.  
  
"Good of you to drop in, Mr. Ikari," Kaji said with a jesting tone.  
  
Shinji's hand froze close enough to feel the down on his cheek. He was ready to seal the wounds.  
  
"Ikari?" Asuka questioned.  
  
"I wouldn't do that," Kaji suggested. "At least not until you hear me out."  
  
Shinji let his hand fall. Though he was annoyed, his interest and suspicion had been piqued.  
The rangy man wore an Edwardian blue suit with a slovenly comfort. Asuka clung to his arm, brushing her small chest against his arm. Her glare was augmented with a small frown.  
  
"I have no other name," Shinji declared.  
  
"You can't deny your blood," Kaji continued.  
  
Shinji glanced at Misato. She shook her head. She had not told him.  
  
"Twins missing their daemons are not unknown, just very rare," Kaji said. "In most cultures, the children are smothered or drowned. In some parts of Arabia, the mother is slain to salvage the family honor. Their very blood is considered tainted. Only one people venerate them, and they are the Ainu. You're mother's line was crossed with their blood. In fact, Castle Ikari is built on top of old Ainu land. That also explains the color of your eyes."  
  
"How do you know this?" Shinji demanded, his voice cracking.  
  
"I looked here and there. I asked around," Kaji answered calmly.  
  
"Who are you? How did you find us, that time in the woods?"  
  
"Your unique abilities leave certain traces. The photos, Miss Katsuragi."  
  
Misato picked up a small sheaf of pictures from the chest. She handed them to Shinji.  
"Take them by the edges," she said.  
  
Shinji could not read the woman's expression. His annoyance drained as Rei nestled against his shoulder to study the photogrammes. Each image had been captured in amber and gilden tones. The first image showed a mass of light curled in a loose globe. The image was blurred.  
  
"The Angel," Rei stated.  
  
"Yes," Kaji said. "That was taken in the caverns."  
  
"It doesn't look like it," Shinji remarked. Deep inside though, he knew that it was true. It was the angel. Deep inside, he also knew that it was an enemy. "The light seems strange."  
  
"Special film, special emulsion. The camera does not lie," Kaji said.  
  
"Film can be doctored," Misato challenged.  
  
"Yes, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that these are real. Next," the man said.  
Shinji slid the first picture to the bottom of the stack. A young woman knelt in the snow. A shadow fell next to her at a strange angle. He examined the strange image longer. The shadow looked like another person. It was a boy, it was himself. They burned incense before a yard high grave marker. The photo showed Sakura and himself during their last day together at Castle Ikari.  
  
"Mother," Rei whispered.  
  
"Don't you have any sense of decency?" Shinji asked Kaji. "Or privacy?"  
  
"I didn't have much time," the man replied shamelessly. "Aren't you curious why you appear like that?"  
  
Shinji nodded in response.  
  
"The emulsion detects Ruskatov particles. Do you know what elementary particles are?  
"  
Shinji shook his head.  
  
"Any idiot should know that," Asuka declared. "They make of everything around us. Electrons, protons, and neutrons. Everything can be broken down into these particles."  
  
"Correct," Kaji said. "Now there are also Ruskatov particles or Dust. No one knew what Dust did, they didn't seem to fit with the other particles to make anything, until Mr. Katsuragi, Misato's honored father, looked into the matter."  
  
"His ideas were discredited," Misato stated flatly.  
  
"They were disbelieved by a group of stuffy academians," the man countered. "Sister Akagi believes in Mr. Katsuragi's research. Katsuragi and his partner invented the techniques used to capture these images. They traveled to the far North and there, they found ancient tools. They found that these objects were over thirty thousand years old, far older than any signs of civilization found before. They also found that the Dust clung to these artifacts more than natural objects, like a rock."  
  
Shinji looked at the photogramme again. The brightness accumulated to the headstone and Sakura and her daemon, but not on the tree in the background. He was dark though. He saw another faint form in the background. The silhouette was composed of light. The shape was feminine. It was as tall as a grown woman. Mother? he thought as a shiver ran down his spine. He pushed the thought out of his mind.  
  
"Let me try to explain it," Shinji said. He licked his dry lips."Dust clung to things that people make - touch," he paused to for Kaji's confirmation. The man nodded. Asuka opened her mouth to speak, but Kaji interrupted her with a raise finger.  
"So if the Dust is dark near me, I must change the Dust around me somehow so that people's eyes can't touch -well- see me."  
  
"That's the idea. The word attention or intent might fit better, though," Kaji said. "That's how I tracked you, I followed the path of altered Dust. The hiding leaves a small trace, but your other abilities leave a larger sign. You've used your abilities extensively two nights in a row. That's probably why the Angel is here."  
  
"You know about that?" Asuka interjected. "But we just saw it tonight."  
  
"There are instruments that can detect it," Kaji said.  
  
"But what are we going to do about it?" Misato asked.  
  
"Nothing, including not using your abilities," Kaji said pointedly to Shinji. "The same goes for the Compass."  
  
The interview ended there, though Shinji had more questions. He wanted ask why the man had tracked them. Shinji wanted to know who he really was. Misato had steered him away though. They needed to awake early to prepare for disembarkment. Shinji reluctantly returned the photogrammes, though he was tempted to pilfer the one of Sakura and the phantoms.  
  
====  
  
A/N: Unfortunately, typing has become too painful for me to ignore anymore. I am going on sabbatical until I learn how to type without hurting myself any further. This could take several months or even longer. This is a mess that I got myself into, so I need to get myself out of it. Thank you for reading. Mea culpa. 


	35. Rising Tensions

Outcasts

35. Rising Tensions

Misato shook Shinji from a deep slumber. Men shouted to each other overhead; they sounded muffled and distant through the deck. Misato headed to the porthole and motioned for the boy to follow. Shinji shivered as his feet touched the cold floorboards. He pulled his blanket around his shoulders before joining her. She was close enough for him to smell traces of perfumed soap. His breath misted the cold glass, which he rubbed clear with the sleeve of his kimono.

The sea stretched black and vast under the pregnant moon. A black blade of a fin emerged from the water to split the silver disc into two. The fin was followed by a great swell that swallowed the light. Its size was hard to tell on the open sea, but the shape seemed enormous.

With his second sight, Shinji clearly saw the creature's alien life force. It was another Angel.

The sailor's voices carried through the still air. The wind had died several hours ago, and, in the meantime, the Angel had caught up with them. Profanities and claims that it was a whale, shark, or sea monster punctuated the night. The first mate ended the debate by declaring that the captain was on deck. The captain's voice soon followed.

"Are you really men? You, Endo, we've sailed together for six years now, we've sailed through a typhoon together, and you let a mere fish scare you?"

"That wasn't just a fish that's out there," the sailor argued.

The captain harangued the men, until they grudgingly quieted down. He barked several orders. Several pairs of feet trudged below, while the remainder readied the cutter to take advantage of the wind; once it returned.

A pair of sailors worked closely enough to be heard, though they spoke in low tones. Misato let in a blast of icy air by opening the glass.

"I heard we aren't hauling any ordinary cargo. The captain himself oversaw the boxes get put in the hold. They were carried by Churchmen and no one on the crew was allowed to touch them."

"Churchmen," the other gave a loud hawk and spat. "I heard that they call all our gods demons. Talking like that is inviting trouble. The other night, I heard Suzuki, that big guy from Hakodate, say that he saw a ghost."

"I heard that he said that he saw two of them, a boy and a girl. He goes around with a rope around his waist tied to his daemon. He said that if they get a hold of your daemon, they'll steal it."

"And we're transporting that crow woman. That's got to be bad luck."

"Hey, less talking and more working over there!" the first mate interjected, silencing the first two speakers.

Misato closed the porthole. She continued to stare at the dark shape in the distance. Shinji had seen her that way only once before, when the first Angel had attacked. There was no trace of the irresponsible drunk that he was familiar with.

Rei joined Shinji at the porthole. He took her hand. He was glad for her warmth and the presence of his other half.

"So they've seen us," Shinji said. He licked his dry lips.

"Yes and the sailors are nervous. That's natural around the unknown. They're also suspicious of us, " Misato said. "But if the wind gets started, then they will be too busy sailing to brood over it."

"What if the wind doesn't pick up?"

"Then that's why we're going to make contingency plans," she answered evenly, though her glare never left the black water.

* * *

Dawn rose without the wind returning. Just as a breeze started, it fell off again. The sailors could see the Angel clearly. The creature was clearly not a whale or a shark, though the streamlined shape resembled an orca. Nature could have never produced a creature so large. Each time the Angel passed, the cargo ship bobbed like a toy in a tub.

The passengers were under tighter scrutiny, so Misato was unable to charm extra hot food from the cook. The three broke fast on dried persimmons and a few spoonfuls of hot congee for each of them. Shinji and Rei had experienced worse.

"This isn't exactly the best conditions for plotting and scheming," Misato grumbled after their meager meal. "You two wait here while I consult with the others."

Shinji passed the morning puzzling over an old Confucian script, while Rei napped next to him. He was tempted to look through the porthole, though it would change nothing. In the end, Rei's calmness prevailed over her twin's restlessness.

The Captain paid a visit to Kaji's quarters around noontime. The captain left after a heated exchange with the samurai Shigeru. A bit more than an hour afterward, Misato slipped into the room followed by Ibuki. The Sister cradled a bulky case in her arms.

Misato was in a better mood. The scent of apple and alcohol on her breath probably had something to do with it. "We've got a plan kids, and the first thing I need you to do is use your powers."


End file.
